Sooo… here’s a little strange nugget of information we just discovered while loading in a .txt file into Flash content using loadVars.load(): the ActiveX Flash Player in IE 6 does NOT like GZIP compression and cache-control being set to no-cache from an HTTP request. Flash also doesn’t allow you to change the response type client-side, so the only solution is to change the host. We didn’t figure this out, this guy or gal did (thank you!). Also note - he’s specifically talking about XML here, but we also had this issue with plain Text files. Needless to say, the EyeWonder staging and live environments now take this into account, so load away with those txt files!
UPDATE (3.19): Via Mike Downey’s blog and the latest info from Adobe’s CEO, it looks like it may be a little further off than originally hoped. We have faith in the Flash Player product team and can’t wait to see what (and when) they release the Flash iPlayer!
It’s funny how most of the time you are given particularly significant moments (or “life experiences”), you hardly notice them or really take them in until years later, or never even. I hate the word “journey” when I hear it on reality shows, mostly because it seems so contrived and corny, but maybe I also hate it because the word “journey” connotes that you are traveling between places, and I don’t always feel particularly aware that I am. I had the honor of speaking to the summer and fall graduating classes of 2007 at the Art Institute of Atlanta last Friday, and I realized then that I certainly didn’t feel as moved or joyful as I should have when I was graduating. Commencement is one of those steps which should be a huge benchmark in anyone’s “journey”.
Watching the class move across the stage, and listening to the thrilled parents, friends, and family go wild when their loved one moved across the stage, it occurred to me that graduating and moving on to the next stage in your life, whatever that may be, is no small feat and should be appreciated with as much of a sense of accomplishment as you can muster. Congrats to all of the grads!
“Before I go on, always remember when working with clients, mentors, and when hiring for your own teams, that success can be sought and achieved at any age and with any amount of experience. Especially in the online industry - think Facebook – CEO Mark Zuckerberg is 23. “This American Life” recently featured a woman writing and directing her very first screenplay at the age of 63. The Doritos campaign, which aired as a primetime placement at the Superbowl last year, was created and produced by five people under the age of 22. You are never too young (or too old) to succeed, and never let lack of experience be an excuse for not trying.”
So it’s been a month, and I’m finally able to start reviewing my notes from Flash on the Beach. There were tons of inspiring sessions and interesting people, and Brighton is really a super-cool town. I don’t want to write yet another review, since you can see more qualified thoughts and wrap-ups like these all over the place:
As everybody else said - the speakers were amazing. Lots of really unbelievable work, including some non-”flashers” (or probably more like ex-flashers) like Robert Hodgin and Rob Chiu, who were really intelligent, creative, and inspiring. From a rich media perspective, there was certainly a lot to take in, although mostly in the form of tools we can start thinking about incorporating into our own releases, as well as cool stuff you can start thinking about doing in your campaigns.
A few ideas:
Particles (Seb Lee-Delisle’s crash course) - I never really thought about how much cool stuff you can do with some really basic math. When I get a few minutes, I might post a few ideas.
PaperVision3d - I know Ryan and I have been talking about it for awhile, but there are starting to be a few really cool interactive ways to incorporate this sort of technology into an ad to make it a REAL 3d experience (instead a video which uses 3d effects).
AIR apps - With the word “widget” currently overtaking the internet, it’s cool that there is now a platform that will allow you, with the tools you already know, to create desktop applications. Lee Brimelow did a great talk on how to quickly create AIR apps, and while a little branding widget may not be taking advantage of all the cool stuff AIR can do, it’s certainly convenient on the production side of things! We just released a product called SocialWonder, which will allow you to post online widgets through EyeWonder ads, but what about a downloadable little thingymibobber as well?
Nifty FMS ideas - Lisa Larson did a great session about cool FMS applications like games, communications, chats, etc. There are certainly lots of innovative ways to apply some of those things to your campaign - virtually limitless possibilities as long as we are still considering challenges in audience scalability.
Man, I can’t believe it’s mid-November and I haven’t written since August. My most sincere apologies to those of you who stop by to see what’s new every once in awhile. I have been traveling pretty much non-stop to visit many of our clients, and also to attend a few Flash Conferences as well.
Some of the noted trips:
LA - got to spend a bunch of time over with Tequila - they are doing some super-cool stuff on the Nissan brand with Flash 9 and AS 3, which I’ll get to share with ya’ll next week. They are embracing the component in a major way - kudos to them for doing some pretty amazing stuff. Also Ayzenberg has started to use the component now - which is VERY exciting!
Adobe MAX - I agree with what Grant S. said about it - it’s a little bit more corporate and less personal than some of the more grassroots conferences, but wow the community is HUGE. There are a lot of cool things coming out with Adobe - most notably AMP (Adobe Media Player), a new version of Flash Media Server, and some pretty cool little side projects they have using AIR like Buzzword. AIR is growing up quickly, and now that you can export Flash projects into AIR applications directly in Flash, we’re probably going to start seeing lots and lots of AIR applications.
NY/DC - met some more of our fabulous agency partners and got to do a shortened best practices presentation for 80 creatives! It is definitely a little nerve wracking when you hop off a plane, speed into Manhattan, and then immediately walk into an 80 person presentation, but I guess there’s no better way to get over an early morning flight than that.
Dublin - London - Flash on the Beach - Dublin is officially my new favorite city. It’s friendly, the pubs are great, you can walk everywhere, and everybody drinks Guinness (it’s good for you, you know). We also have a really great new office there, which we share with some really cool dudes called MadDog Multimedia, so it’s exciting to see us expanding the way we are. I didn’t mention that I also got to go over to Germany recently to visit our new office in Cologne. I’ve got to learn German.
As I find the time, I’ll put up some more specifics on some helpful things I learned at Flash on the Beach as well so stay tuned. And I promise it won’t be 3 months from now.
As a fairly new Mac user, I’m always discovering or learning new things from some of you Apple-veterans, but today I was alerted about this SUPER cool feature in the 10.4.8 release. Basically, press Control and then scroll up and down with two fingers on your trackpad (for laptop only obviously) and see what happens. Maybe ya’ll knew about this already, but I was blown away. This certainly would have been useful in the last three weeks of our EyeWonder-Adobe events!! By the way - stay tuned as we will be following up on those events as soon as possible…
