It's a definite first stop when you're looking for anything from a how-to tutorial to that link you can't remember how to find. Extremely well organized and thorough, it is a great collection of all things Director and sure to be a hit. Thanks Dean as always, your contributions to the community are worthy of praise indeed.

The news was pretty extensively covered. I've included links to the various articles and blogs below.

http://www.magicgate.com/podcast/director/

Rumors are swimming about Director. I heard whispers all over the plane. One kid ran up to me pointing and shouting 'Look mommy its that Director Preacher!' Needless to say I was totally flattered. After I slipped the kid a 20 I sat down to watch Wired Science on my iPhone. That's right, I did it. I bought the iPhone. I hate to admit it, but I haven't been happier with a tech-purchase since my blue clamshell ibook. Man I loved that thing. That was the first Mac I ran D8.5 on. You may bow your head in reverence when I mention 8.5.

But after hauling my 22 lb (okay maybe not 22) Dell XPS Gen 2 Laptop halfway across the planet, my back wants a 3 lb laptop with screaming fast graphics performance and the sleekest look since my beloved clamshell. Okay maybe its unreasonable to ask for a 512 mb graphics card in the worlds thinnest computer, but a boy can dream can't he? Can't he?

If each one paid you 2$ US you'd be a billionaire. There are approximately one and two thirds players installed for every person in North America. There are about enough for every two persons in India to share one. In fact, there are about enough for every 12 people on the planet to share 1. That means there are so many installed copies of Shockwave, that there is essentially 1 for every 12 people.

;)

So I'm clearly thinking a lot now about beer. Where in San Francisco will I find cheap beer? How cheap can it be without causing further offense? How much beer can we 40 something developers really drink? And a host of other beer related nonsense.

4 cups flour

2 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 HALF can of beer

Mix ingredients, pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake at 375 for 70 minutes. Remove and cool.

I asked my friend if the bread was any good and he claimed it was 'yummy.' Apparently more so if you use a dark beer. In fact, recent studies suggest that beer is quite good for you. Though I'm not sure that substantial quantities of beer are recommended.

When I was in Bangalore, my friend Vivek Pai introduced me to Kingfisher Beer. I was immediately in love with the brew and knew that I would now be forced to find a US distributor for this wonderful fluid. A little web search and voilà - i was able to order a case. But I have no plans to bring it with me to GDC. ;)

I'm thrilled to report that Skip confirmed today that the Director Podcast will return to service in a matter of days. Its the perfect chance to download any back issues you may have missed and get caught up as Skip revamps the format and preps the podcast for its reintroduction to the community.

I'm personally thrilled to see this Podcast returning to service, yet another sign of Director's growing momentum as we build toward the launch of the next version. Adobe Director users have often been working with this amazing engine for nearly 20 years and they are generally very excited that Adobe is releasing a new version of Director. The release couldn't come soon enough for hungry developers and authors anxious to port projects to the rumoured new operating systems.

So welcome back Skip! We've all missed you. I can't wait to see what mysteries you have in store for us.

As you may know I recently authored a book "Creating Casual Games for Fun and Profit" published by Charles River Media (I know the title is ... ugh ... but they never let me choose titles.) Nonetheless it's reallly the first and I think still the only serious investigation of the topic. I surveyed the active casual game community and came to simlar conclusions. Given the incredibly short development cycles for casual games today and the need to deliver online and offline solutions, Director is the obvious choice.

There's an excerpt from my book online here if you're in a reading mood.

People love to play thes online gems, but are considerably more hesitant to buy them. A great turnover in the industry is about 2% purchases on downloads. You can imagine how frustrating it must be for game developers to see their games played tens of thousands of times and never realize any significant profit from them. The exception however is the lure in this booming industry. One serious hit casual game will generate millions in profits.

The industry is also taking a substantial turn as more and more industry portals (the primary distribution mechanism for casual games) turn to advertising revenue sharing models - passing some of their substantial ad revenue down to the developer and lending a little equity to the system - suggesting that the paradigm might have some longevity. Growth rates in this industry are nothing short of mind-blowing. Its worth giving the industry a serious look and Director is a great candidate to facilitate the rapid application development that is expected in this booming industry.

The signpost is genuine. The service apartment in which i stayed was about 2 blocks from the Adobe office. A brief, albeit exciting walk in and among Bangalore's buzzing 5mph traffic led me to the morning each day.

Now I don't want to be accused of sugar coating anything, so i'll add that like most westerners I found my initial reaction to the dense traffic, wild dogs, wandering livestock and wind strewn trash was initially cautious suspiscion. It was difficult at first to see beyond the primitive and ancient structures and traditions to the heart of the city. But after some sleep and a bit of extraordinary food, I came to find that there was a giant place in my heart for Bangalore.

Perhaps the most impressive thing; however, was the tremendous community the team have formed. They work closely with one another and even eat meals together. They gather periodically for 'sweets' at one another's desks and this strong sense of common purpose is clearly the result of mutual love for the product.

A good chunk of the Dev Team pauses for sweets.

Such a big team in fact that it was difficult (well for me impossible) to learn everyone's name. Nonetheless meeting the engineers, quality enginnering team and management face to face was fantastic. As has been true for the past couple of months, every day I enjoy the work I get to do more and more. I was most impressed with the enthusiasm the team has for the product. Its clear that these guys are absolutely thrilled about Director.

They attack problems and challenges with a fervor that can only come from an extraordinary committment to making software they love. In fact, Vivek Pai, the engineering manager on the team told me more than once "this is my baby." and there is no question that he is a committed parent working dilligently to ensure that the next release is the best release. Vivek is passionate and ingenious. He commands respect with his extraordinary depth of knowledge about Director, and frankly he taught me an enormous amount about it with the ease of seasoned professor.

His partner in the effort is the soft spoken but firm Krishnan HS (Director's QE Manager.) Krishnan works tirelessly to clear every issue from the system. He is so incredibly responsive to the general community he is fast becoming an model for me. I think perhaps we should call him the exterminator as he takes great pleasure in fixing and closing bugs. ;)

I want to extend a huge thanks to Tridib Chowdhury and the entire Director Team in Bangalore. My visit was full of great experiences, memories and new friends. You guys are the best, and we the Director community are very, very lucky to have you working on Director.

The great thing about the list Mockworld provides is that it not only identifies the companies making Shockwaves, it contains direct links to many of the games. Some I had never seen before. I of course had to run through the Disney Pirate3Dhead experience.

Here I am once converted to a pirate by this really amusing combined online and offline Director / Shockwave application. You have to experience conversion to pirate - its hysterical and liberating!

Here we say, Don't just make waves, Make Shockwaves!

Adobe Director continues a tradition of nearly twenty years of excellence in multimedia authoring. Shockwave isn't just any web plugin, it's the plugin that revolutionized the Internet more than a decade ago providing Rich Internet Applications, games, presentations, animations when web pages were otherwise slow and static.

Today there is no better way to publish robust cross-platform real-time 3D applications on the Internet than via Adobe Shockwave. It is the most powerful online plugin in its class and remains an industry leader. With over 60% ubiquity it by far the most far reaching Internet plugin for providing 3D visualization, interaction and animation. I look forward to hearing from members of the community of Director Authors and developers. Look to this space for regular updates about Director and Shockwave.