Talk about Web 2.0 and the concept of software as service has been alive for nearly a decade but this year it seems we may see it blossom from its idealistic theories and more ugly practice. Not having to ship your software in a shrink wrapped box has obvious advantages, and updates that can be pushed to your customers that fix bugs and improve service should make for better software. Hey, need good resources to accompany your documentation, or to direct users to tools that work with your application, no problem, you can integrate third party content and services beneath your application chrome into brilliant mash-up. Completely user focused software design should become king.However what other changes would we see? I find myself with more questions then answers.We would expect software to become cheaper, and in some cases even free for use; funded through integrated advertising.We would expect software to become more stable and easier to use given it can be updated at any time.We would expect software to become more powerful because the expertise of different industries could be combined in ways not conceived of in the original application design.We would expect software to evolve much faster then current cycles.But what challenges will that bring to the table for developers and software designers and producers? Consider using advertising to make software free. How can the need to generate revenue be balanced with a user experience that is not to distracting? Well sponsors have influence on the software use as the do the entertainment media we view?Will the quality of software and expectations change because updates can be more frequent? Consider a lot of the free online applications we already use that are seemingly in perpetual beta. The ability accurately to track the use of each individual feature and how many advertising dollars a specific feature may be able to bring in, may have more impact on what bugs are considered critical then the nature of the problem.How about those mash-ups? What type of impact will third parties or individual users have on the distribution of content and services? Having to coordinate updates with several other companies would be a challenge. Having to test all the pieces work well together would be an even bigger challenge.Then there is your user community. The ability to target a specialized user in a niche market becomes far more viable given the ability to reach your users and cut down your production costs. But does it also make it easier to identify new markets, and adapt your software to a different audience? In theory it does; it’s just business logic right? Perhaps, but then there may be less user “community” when competition from other free or low cost software services allow a user to be less committed to a particular brand.What about operating systems? I have heard the idea that cross platform Web 2.0 applications could render the need to continuously upgrade your operating system obsolete. Freeing users from the proprietary differences of what software they can use because of it’s availability on their OS is an appealing thought but don’t write of OS vendors just yet. It’s not hard to imagine OS upgrades to come chocked full of an impressive range of Web 2.0 apps to fulfill every category of application need you may ever dream of having and promptly direct you to their solutions as your individual need is detected. Something not unlike the web browser wars when the internet was young is not impossibility. Nor is the idea of your application suites being bundled into the cost of your Internet access along with your phone and cable TV.So is this the new age for the small software company, the best thing for users since the PC, more control for the big software companies or something else?It’s hard to tell, and it is hard to say who will decide in the end.So far it has not been quite the untamed western front on the internet I imagined in say 2003. But then again, maybe the new frontiers just are not quite so wild any more.Is your company building or are you working out this new paradigm shift? What do you think?

AMP is in beta and I have to say I am pretty happy about it. I think I am not alone in my dream for on demand ala-cart media entertainment. As it stands I watch most of my Television Series via mail delivered DVD subscription rental. Juggling all the things in life between home and work make the idea of me having to be sitting in front of my TV during the one time a Network assures me the program I want to see will be playing less the appealing. Lots of people love their DVRs for much the same reason but with more and more content being published online from past episodes on the network to extra fan content, and independent producers making a name for themselves, I really want the ability to get everything I am interested in, in when place, when I want it. AMP looks like it could be just the solution.But what makes it good? Well content streamed and downloaded to my computer at a quality good enough to play on my TV is great! The ability to subscribe to any content that is available and have it pushed means I can keep up with my content with very little effort. The idea that anyone could produce their own web series in as high a quality as they want and be assured their viewers can see it, navigate it, get notifications of new content without having to produce an application to view it is fantastic. The thing I feel may make or break the success of the Amp in my opinion will be how creative advertising becomes when it is integrated into it environment. Will it be intrusive, will it look like web banners, will it look like traditional TV ads? What would the advantages be in this Web 2.0 medium for the viewer, the advertiser? I suppose time will tell.http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/mediaplayer/

So at this point some readers are probably thinking, “sure that happened to me” or “no way I had work hard to be this good” and more generally “ok so what’s your point?”

Well the point is that often words define us. Once you become the “Expert,” well people expect miracles from you. And while that may sound like a lot of pressure, the funny thing is when you are always honest with yourself you start producing those miracles. By virtue of you being and “Expert” or local “genius” after a while anything you produce becomes a miracle. You spend a little more time on your challenges; learn to look at things from different perspectives. You start putting priority on delivering results and waste less energy worrying about how. You evolve the attitude that you know you can achieve your goals because it’s what everyone expects you to do and it’s what you expect of yourself. After all, that is what “Experts” do. Experts keep learning about their professions. Experts keep expanding their skills. Experts start socializing and sharing with other experts so they can learn from each other. In reality the “Expert Flash user” is just a “Flash user” that took on a new title and thus a new definition.

The same can be said for words like “Novice, Beginner, Designer, Developer, Scripter” etc. They put us in a box that tells us what our expectations are. A Scripter is not supposed to develop complex things from scratch, a Designer is not supposed to code, a Developer can’t tell you what looks good. If you want to grow beyond your box, then you need to give yourself a new title, a new definition and think of yourself that way. Do what “those” people do because it is different. Go where “those” people go because you have not been there before. When you believe you are one of those people, everyone else will too, and then you become one of them. It does not always happen right away. Sometimes it takes some time. There has to be a sense of comfort in the change.

It’s that willingness to make a change to step outside the group, challenge the conventions of your box that starts the journey from “user” to “Expert”.

“Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.”

- Henry Ford (1863-1947)

The problem is, as features get more complex, the amount of code a user has to write, and the degree of coding skill tends to increase proportionally. It is enough to keep some users lingering in the world of ActionScript 2 while the things that most express their creativity are best built or only possible in ActionScript 3.

To be motivated to learn more about anything I have personally found, albeit more recently, that small steps toward an achievable goal provides both a foundation for future learning and tangible measure of success right now.When I first picked up Flash I had a few advantages. I had used Director before and there were some transferable skills. I also had a background in programming that gave me a framework in which to approach Flash. However neither was enough to keep me from the pit fall of biting off more then I can chew. I decided to build an interactive online portfolio. I spent days struggling with the timeline, countless hours searching through the documentation to figure out what actionScript I needed to use, and even more time figuring out exactly how I was going to produce a remotely interesting design of my application with no idea how to use the drawing tools.Many times along the way I was discouraged and wanted to give up or start over, but in my case I wanted Flash to be a big part of my next career so giving in was not a luxury I permitted myself. In the end I built my portfolio, in about the most complex file you can imagine, but it was a proud moment. In retrospect, the projects I built later were all much smaller and less ambitious. I aimed for a narrow scope of functionality in projects I knew I could build and increased the complexity and challenge over time. When I got good at a particularly approach to a regular problem I tried to take a different route to solve it. Eventually all those small goals resulted in a wide breadth and depth of Flash skills I still use today.I can’t help but wonder if the pain of my first project humbled me into a more reasonable approach to learning or the success of my hard, but primarily misdirected, efforts gave me the sense that Flash was not something that was just beyond my grasp. What would have happened if I failed? It makes me think that the baby step approach may be the best way to learn Flash or to make the transition from wearing a Designer hat for visuals to a Developer hat for interactivity. Working on the Flash team I wonder if there is a way to integrate that concept into Flash to help users grow their skills much faster then they currently do.Perhaps to do that we would first have to know what are the first projects people normally build in Flash, and what are the things people who have never used Flash most want to do. What does a user who considers themselves a Designer or Animator find they most need ActionScript for and what are they most challenged by. Maybe a few testimonials can help those new to the community figure out what their baby steps should be.

In my opinion Flex and Flash focus on following standards whenever possible. This is one of the reasons you can use Flash or Flex as a presentation layer for almost anything. Flash-Lite has provided capabilities on devices, and Apollo will fill specialized usage on the desktop. These currently work with MS server side and client side technologies where ever there are standards in between. So why you WPFe. Is it more a matter for religion?Perhaps there is some advantage in the use of Windows Media Player Video. MS has some degree of Digital Rights Management. For some companies this is a perceived requirement. Many developers, and media pirates for that matter, will tell you DRM is a waste of time and money. Any solution can be defeated. By implementing DRM you make big corporations happy, mildly annoy media pirates, and really tick off consumers that feel their fair use rights are violated.I’m inclined to believe there is truth in both camps. My question is more along the lines of, how much security is too much. Clearly, upsetting the legit consumer is not the primary concern in every DRM solution. Although several times I have heard a non-technical users angrily identify Flash as the reason they could not store internet videos on their hard drive any more. I suppose from there perspective FLV is a form of DRM. Did that restriction save some companies money? Did it stop a large number of users from republishing FLVs?

Enjoy!

Honestly one thing I have to say is that user feed back has been pouring in regarding the Player 9 release, and a good deal of that feed back went into this update, including the Full Screen feature. We have been making an effort to evolve the Player with how people use and want to use Flash. And you should watch the skies for more surprises to come.See ya at MAX!-Ken

AS3 is cool; REALLY COOL, but I won’t lie to you. You may be happier with it if you suffered through a few Java development courses in undergrad and happily yelped “thank you sir can I have another”. But I am not rambling on so that I can scare you off. My post today is to make use of a momentary laps in workload and remind everyone that the syntax and structural shift from AS1 to AS2 was no picnic for many and the same will be said for what is more of a paradigm shift from AS2 to AS3. There will be new things you have to learn and some of the simple things you used to do will require you to write more code. On the upside, just like with ActionScript 2, the really complex things can be built with far less code and you will have more control over what happens when.Initially AS3 may feel too formal and restrictive in that all your old beloved coding tricks may not work any more. Your days of cowboy scripting and side comments of “if I wanted to be a developer I would be a Java programmer” may look like they are numbered. However, if you made the transition to ActionScript 2 at all you more then likely are deeper into formal programming then you ever realized. Even most “designers” these days scoff at that simplicity of ActionScript 1 and going backward can be more worrisome then what lies ahead. While features like “Normal mode” and “Script assist” will always have their place, time and experience with ActionScript 3 will reveal its value to even the most skeptical. The initial flood of complexity promptly drifts away when as you realize how your approach to coding with AS3 provides better error handling, fast –intuitive parsing of data, control over loading external media and in general, the foundation to allow you to be even more creative in a dynamic ways then you ever thought possible.Now that I have confessed my joy for AS3 and Player 9 I want to hear you have to say!Get AS3 Preview from labs and bring me you thoughts, praise, gripes, and oh yes.. desires for Flash Player 10!P.S. sorry for the 80s reference

WW020602-Developer, Flex Enterprise:

http://cooljobs.adobe.com/frameset.html?goto=er-viewjob&refnode=103511

TB010604-Senior Quality Engineer:

http://cooljobs.adobe.com/frameset.html?goto=er-viewjob&refnode=103508

LM020604-Flex Builder QE Engineer:

http://cooljobs.adobe.com/frameset.html?goto=er-viewjob&refnode=103517

SK120508-Quality Engineer:

http://cooljobs.adobe.com/frameset.html?goto=er-viewjob&refnode=103522

SK010609-Computer Scientist:

http://cooljobs.adobe.com/frameset.html?goto=er-viewjob&refnode=103549

SK120507-Computer Scientist:

http://cooljobs.adobe.com/frameset.html?goto=er-viewjob&refnode=103528

WW020603-Architect, Flex Enterprise:

http://cooljobs.adobe.com/frameset.html?goto=er-viewjob&refnode=103531

SK120506-Computer Scientist:

http://cooljobs.adobe.com/frameset.html?goto=er-viewjob&refnode=103534

HW020602-Computer Scientist – Flex Builder:

http://cooljobs.adobe.com/frameset.html?goto=er-viewjob&refnode=103537

Second, this project actually began with a support call probably about a year or so ago and I think shows, at least a little, of the thought process that went into coming up with a solution to a problem we had not faced before. Loren brought his needs and perspective to the project and I brought my understanding of ActionScript to the problem. We met in the middle with our different perspectives on video and result was not just a solution that helped Loren to meet his project deadline; but an experience which really helped me to gain some understanding of Captivate and its potential fit into the grand scheme of things as a fairly recent member of the Flash family of products.

Hope you enjoy it.

http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/captivate/articles/cpvideo.html

What did you think?

Oh ya? Think you can do better?

Well now is your chance to prove it!

After about two and a half years in Flash Technical Support, and more then a year as the Support lead and subject matter expert in ActionScript and Application Architecture I have decided to take my experience helping users fix problems and innovate solutions to helping the Player Engineering team solve problems, innovate solutions and bring new features to the Flash Player.

That means that soon I will be looking for some new blood. You experienced coders, you quick witted, good humored Flash developers who love to think on your feet, and you hard core jack of all trades who love a never ending challenge, now is your chance to get your foot in the door and help shape the evolution of Flash and its user community.

Applicants must have nerves of steel, be passionate(or nutz) about Flash, enjoy a good party, and enjoy occasional travel, and good pool playing skills are a plus but not required.

Show us what you got!