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How to rank well with Flash movies Flash movies are a popular way to make websites more compelling. They are useful if you want to impress your website visitors or if you offer web design services.Unfortunately, if you use Flash movies, or if you even design your complete website based on the Flash technology, your odds of getting listed in the search engines are greatly reduced.Read this article to find out how to rank well with Flash movies. read more:
How to get high Google rankings with Flash sites Flash movies are a great way to add multimedia elements to a web site. Unfortunately, Flash cannot be indexed by most search engines. For that reason, it is very difficult to get high search engine rankings for Flash sites. This article explains how to get top rankings on Google with Flash sites. read more:
FlashXMLHttpRequest: cross-domain requests
I've been working with Jason Levitt (from Yahoo) recently to iron the wrinkles out of my Flash-based technique for making cross-domain requests. The main focus was to extend the reach of the technique to a larger audience, by adding support for Flash 7, which is more widely deployed than Flash 8.
Brad Neuberg's awesome work on DojoExternalInterface gave us a major boost. It emulates the most recent javascript to flash communication API (ExternalInterface, in Flash 8) accross platforms including Flash 7. The library hides differences with browsers and flash versions as much as possible, and works around various performance limitations.
Thanks again to Jason for his interest, feedback and support. I'm pretty excited to see what cool stuff he'll cook using this and the new web APIs from Yahoo.
If you only want to deploy this component, you can download the 'binary' package. To modify the flash source files and re-build them, get the 'source' package.
As you can see in the demo/index.html file, after including dojo.js and FlashXMLHttpRequest.js, you'll need to initialize dojo and the flash object by calling InitFlash with the name of a function. That function will be invoked once the flash object is loaded and ready to make requests. From there on, you can create FlashXMLHttpRequest instances and use the 'open', 'onload' and 'send' methods almost as you would with a regular XMLHttpRequest object. You can also call 'setRequestHeader', but only to set the content type request header.
More generally, FlashXMLHttpRequest still has some limitations, due to the native Flash capabilities. First, access to other domains is restricted by use of a crossdomain.xml file. Second, you can only make GET and POST requests. It will become possible to support other verbs, such as PUT, DELETE or HEAD, with the new APIs provided by Flash 8.5.
Let me know if FlashXMLHttpRequest is useful to you and if you encounter any bugs. Here's a more convenient permalink to this post: http://blog.monstuff.com/FlashXMLHttpRequest.
Sliding_up buttons Deluxe ($ 5.00) (By Acflash) This product is developed in Flash 8 and is compatible whit Flash MX 2004, read more:
Light buttons Deluxe ($ 15.00) (By Acflash) Macromedia flash library, just drag and drop the button in your flash movie, read more:
The Flash Satay method to embed flash in your pages and support standards This weeks tip: Use the Flash Satay method to embed flash in your pages and support standardsThe standard way to embed flash within a web page is to use the object element; the W3C tell us that the object element is an, 'all-purpose solution to generic object inclusion'. So that's fine and handy - however, the object element is not supported by all web browsers. Developers have tried to work around this deficiency by adding the non-standard (but working) embed tag into their markup - effectively repeating all the necessary attributes in each tag. Using the embed tag means that pages will no longer validate - a situation which makes developers who pride themselves on their adherence to standards rather uncomfortable. During a discussion about this issue on the Guild of Accessible Web Designers mailing list, I was alerted to an article by Drew Mclellan who addresses this very problem. Drew provides a solution that ensures flash works in many more browsers without failing validation tests, a solution he calls the, 'Flash Satay method'.For the full story and his detailed solution of how to embed flash in your pages and keep them standard compliant, read Drew's excellent article at http://www.alistapart.com/articles/flashsatay/Links: Guild of Accessible Web Designrs Flash Satay Article W3C information about object element read more:
How to hide a flash movie from screen readers and keyboard users Adding a Flash movie to your web page may be making the content of that page inaccessible to some visitors. For example, Keyboard users and people using screen reader users are likely to run into the following problems: The keyboard cannot be used to 'focus' on the flash movie, i.e. the user can't tab to the movie object and explore the content. When navigating the flash movie via the keyboard it is impossible to get back out again - making it impossible to explore the rest of the page.Here are a couple of tips for getting around the problems:Make the Flash movie invisible to keyboard users. If the flash movie does not contain valuable content, i.e., it might just be for decoration - the following technique can be used to make the flash movie invisible to keyboards and screen readers:Use the wmode option within the embed and the object tag,
Advertiser Sneaks Malware into Flash Ad An underhanded advertiser trick that hit LiveJournal demonstrates a risk of accepting Flash ads -- they can pop up windows:
... the Flash ad contains code to open a popup that leads to a very different destination -- it's what I assume is an affiliate link that attempts to download and install ErrorSafe on your computer (link is to Symantec's description of it).
This, of course, would be totally against any ad company's guidelines. Masquerading as a banner ad, but discreetly opening a popup -- and not only that, but to what people consider malware -- is totally against any ad company's guidelines. So how did it get through?
Simple -- the ad actually contacts its website in the background, and the site returns a response code that tells it whether to display the popup or not - 'popup=1'. My guess is that kpremium.com returned 'popup=0' while the ad company were testing the ad for conformance to guidelines, and then they turned it back on once it was out in the wild.
Quick and Easy Flash Prototypes: Bring Your Wireframes to Life To tackle the classic “how to prototype rich interactions” problem, Alexa Andrzejewski developed a process for translating static screen designs (from wireframes to visual comps) into interactive experiences using Flash. Requiring some fairly basic ActionScript knowledge, these prototypes proved to be a quick yet powerful way to bring interaction designs to life. Andrzejewski, Alexa read more:
Media Center Recorded TV Backup To DVD
I've had the media center PC for over a year now and its changed the way we watch TV dramatically. But the other day I found something new. I always knew the media center could backup recorded TV to a DVD but I was surprised how the media center laid the DVD out. I fully expected the shows to run back to back with no DVD menu, but what I found was that the media center put a really cool media center themed menu into the DVD. I was really surprised and really happy that after all this time I can still be amazed at how cool the media center is.
I've had a couple of questions by email that I should answer (note I've paraphrased some of these):
What fonts should I use for my HTML Media Center application and can I use Flash? The SDK is where to go for design guidelines for HTML applications (the short answer is to use a sans serif font). Yes, Flash can be used in HTML Media Center applications - Napster and MSN Music both use Flash.
How can I add an application to the Start Menu? You can't. Well OK, you can, but we recommend that only OEMs use this functionality as there is a limit to how many applications can appear on the start menu and adding a new app will stomp on existing applications. If you intend to distribute your application you shouldn't do this, but if you really want to know, the details are in the SDK here.
I've seen the Media Center software for sale online is it OK to buy it? I'm no lawyer so I'm not going to comment on this. Media Center is an OEM product and only available with new PCs is the official answer though.
Cool Web Marketing Tool lists a great SEO / SEM toolkit list read more:
Flash text size Forum: FlashPosted By: adam cPost Time: 03-01-2007 at 10:32 read more:
Navbar Deluxe ($ 9.00) (By Acflash) Navigation menu made in macromedia flash, easy to use, all you have to do is read more:
Fade Deluxe ($ 5.00) (By Acflash) Menu made in macromedia flash, configurable by external XML fil read more:
Conserve Bandwidth, Stay Online Flash crowds can happen to anyone! Trim file size to mitigate the damage should one appear at your site.... read more:
Torkington: Ning's Cool! I have to admit that I had the same impressions of Ning that Nat Torkington did, and I don't even... read more:
cool art for sale bt local artist- me! (s austin) i have a lot of random art i would like to sell, some are on canvas, some framed, some not framed, email me and i will give more details! read more:
The CSS Box Model Hierarchy For developers new to CSS and the box model, this is an excellent 3D visual aid. I also highly recommend following the link to Douglas Livingstone's interactive Flash demonstration version. read more:
Fast Video Download It seems as if everybody has their own way of doing things. When it comes to downloading flash videos via your favorite video sharing Web sites, it is no different. There are several different extensions that all do their jobs well. The newest one to be added to the list is the [...] read more:
Playing with new blog theme
Found this neat thing called Canvas. It’s a meta-theme, or maybe a CMS for Wordpress. Cool stuff anyhow, you should check it out.
Valleyschwag2 Yes! I’m one of the 1500. I subscribed to Valleyschwag some weeks ago, and my schwag arrived today. Nothing really special in it, but cool nonetheless.Here’s a picture:Flickr set read more:
iPod's Coolness Waning as Popularity Grows New report from The Diffusion Group confirms that "Cool Factor" is losing ground as primary reason for iPod adoption. [PRWEB Nov 1, 2005] read more:
What is the object element for? And what's it got to do with accessibility? Currently we add images to our pages using the img element, we tend to add fancy bits of video or wizzy and exciting flash using the applet element. So why do we need the object element? The object element introduced as part of HTML 4, and is designed to be used for all instances when we want to embed a generic object - such as a flash movie, or a video or an image - into a web page.That's all very well but what's it got to do with accessibility? Well the fantastic thing about the Object elements is that you can use it to provide lots of alternative presentations of your content - you are not confined to providing a simple text equivalent - as you are for when using the img tag.For example, you want to provide a Quicktime video on a web page - but it turns out that some browsers don't have the support for Quicktime - so you can specify that a mpeg movie be played instead, or some other alternative format. If the mpeg movie isn't supported you can specify that a text transcription should be used - and so on.To add the fun - for browsers that don't support the object element you can provide the embed element within the object element as yet another alternative method of delivering your multi-media.So there you go; the object element is a kind of Swiss army knife (so to speak) you can add to your web accessibility tool box.LinksW3 Schools Juicy Studio read more:
Skills for Access If this site isn't a testament to beautiful design, and advocating, demonstrating and teaching accessibility, then I don't know of a better example. Also covers multimedia accessibility: Flash, Shockwave and external viewers. Great resource, thanks RJ. read more:
Microsft 'HD' web cam
I bought a Microsoft vx-6000 because it promised to do 1.3 megapixel video. Well... it does do 640x480 at 30fps it does 800x600 at up to 15, and 1280x1024 at 15. So this is not the cheap build it my slef HD Cam I was hoping for. Still a cool camera, and not bad for $99, but I have seen better cameras, that have less noise, and offer IR-LED's for low light.
Mirror menu Deluxe ($ 5.00) (By Acflash) Simple menu , made in Macromedia Flash, with mirror effec read more:
Intel Inside: Great News! WWDC was very cool. One of the best features was the availability of Intel macs in the labs to test and compile code. I brought the Path Finder source on an external firewire disk, mounted it on one of the... read more:
MSN Virtual Maps Has anyone checked this out yet? MSN Virtual Maps? It is so cool, you can look up your house, business, city, anything, and it will show you a satellite picture of it, that you can zoom into, scroll North/South/East/West read more:
Contemporary art: LARGE DECORATIVE PAINTINGS starting from (Boston) $350 European contemporary art makes your living room cool! Choose your colors and the artist will make your dreams real Ask for any questions
WinHEC Here I come! Well, because I am currently working with WHQL, I get to attend WinHEC. That is so cool. I will be around at the WHQL Booth during exhibit time. If you are going, come on by! read more:
Top 10 Web Site Annoyances Arriving at a Web site only to get it in a pop up window with Flash. Takes control away from user. I want to decide how many windows I have open.Forms that don’t make it easier for the user to fix when making an error especially those that erase the form when you return to [...] read more:
Is Java still ''cool?'' I've got a short piece featured over on java.net today, it is actually a response to a thread started by Brett McLaughlin and Kathy Sierra. read more:
Bicycle-powered blenders Cory Doctorow:
Fueled by the discovery that a Starbucks in Washington has "a bicycle powered blender and the customers make their own drinks," Make Blog's Phil Torrone went bike-blender crazy, pulling together a great post on making and buying bike-powered blenders.
Stupid Ruby Tricks: String#to_proc I was thinking about one of the cool bits of ActiveSupport, Symbol#to_proc, which allows you to do this:[1, 2, 3].map(&:to_s) #=> ['1', '2', '3']That’s useful for sorting, enumerating, mapping, etc. Quite handy, and it saves you the trouble of writing a block to return a single value. I was recently someplace with a fair bit [...] read more: