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Adobe has teamed up with Grant Skinner once more to produce a new Flash component for use within Ajax applications. In a nutshell, the component allows Ajax developers to control video playback, set skins, and listen for events just like a Flash developer would in ActionScript. All communication between the two APIs is handled via external interface calls as you might expect.

The component is available for download on Adobe Labs.

Nicolas Cannasse, developer of MTASC and haXe, has released a new library called hxASM for writing in Flash 9 assembler. In some initial tests, he was able to improve AVM2 performance by as much as 30% over the same test written in AS3/haXe. This is a pretty impressive release; it’s definitely worth checking out.

Engadget has gotten ahold of some photos of what is believed to be the newly designed Apple keyboard. The design is quite interesting; I’m anxious to see how the shallow buttons feel. Also worth noting is the additional audio controls for play/pause, previous track, and next track. The keyboard is rumored to be officially unveiled in early to mid August along with a newly designed iMac as well.

The Puma Apres site features some of the slickest Papervision3D integration I have yet to see in a website. It’s all AS2 and their usage of 3D isn’t tacky at all. I like it.

Also, Craig over at Firstborn sent me one of their latest projects - a trippy web experience for HP. Good stuff.

So here’s my situation. I recently purchased the newest Apple MacBook Pro model to act as my workstation on-the-go. It is a beast and has been working wonderfully except for the one big issue I have been having. I try to spend as much time as I can under OS X, but there are some apps I still run on Windows XP under Parallels. One of these apps is Flash CS3. Everytime I try and publish a file that I transferred over from my PC workstation, Flash CS3 crashes. To be more specific, I copied the files from my PC to an external hard drive, then on to my MacBook Pro hard drive (under OS X). I then transferred the files from there down into my virtual machine’s ‘C’ drive.

Now, when I create a new FLA file from sratch, everything seems to be fine. The issue is when I open one of the transferred FLA files and try and publish, or even if I import one of the classes I transferred over. I managed to find a way around this, which is kind of a pain in the ass, but it does work. What I have been doing is opening the transferred class files, copy and pasting all the code into a brand new AS document, then saving it out into a new directory structure. This works amazingly enough.

So, having figured out this much, I started hypothesizing that this was one of those crazy OS X to Windows file issues. I decided to try something. I ejected my external hard drive from OS X and then mounted it directly to the virtual machine. This can be accomplished in the Parallels menu bar at the top of the screen under Devices > USB > External HDD. Once the hard drive was detected in Windows and available for use, I copied my files over to a new directory and gave things another shot in Flash CS3. Everything worked! This is a lifesaver as I was seriously not looking forward to doing that hack-attack method of copying and pasting into new documents. What is strange is that the Flash 8/AS2 files that I copied over from OS X to Windows work just fine in Flash 8. This issue I am having is specific to Flash 9 stuff in Flash CS3.

I also want to clarify that I have tried many things including uninstalling and reinstalling Flash CS3, running WinCS3Clean, and CCleaner. This is clearly a bug with Flash CS3 and the file formats losing or gaining some additional data in the transfer process between operating systems. So, if you have been running into any issues where Flash CS3 is crashing constantly when you try and publish some files, give this stuff a try. As I said, worst case, if you don’t have the original files anymore, you can copy and paste code into new documents as well.

Peter Jaworowski redesigned his portfolio website and added some new content as well. I like it.

Nigel Evan Dennis has also redesigned his site and added new content.

Classic American artist Charley Harper, famous for his amazing stylistic illustrations of animals and nature, now has a 420 page book out featuring his legacy of work. It is available for purchase on Amazon as a standard hardcover print for $200, or on AMMO as a numbered, limited edition which was personally signed by Charley and also includes a silkscreen print. Charley passed away a little over a month ago at the age of 84.

Shilo have created their first book/DVD combo, which is now shipping. It is available for purchase at YouWorkForThem for the everyday low price of $24.95. I ordered mine last week and am very much looking forward to checking it out. I will post up a review next week.

I recently read an interesting article in the July issue of Computer Arts magazine that was aptly titled “To code or not to code?”. The article is about the separate worlds of designers and developers and how the boundaries between the two are quickly blurring. It touches on how a good design often isn’t enough anymore; it needs to function as well. Interactive media is taking over; it is on the internet, on your mobile devices, and quickly gaining ground on your TV as well. It is imporant that designers adapt to this new modern age so that they can better understand the medium that they are designing for.

“Architects, fashion designers, and painters need to understand their materials so they can work with them better. For digital creatives, code - HTML, ActionScript, JavaScript, whatever - is one of our materials. The better we know it, the better we work.” -Kip Voytek, R/GA

There are some very interesting statistics that go along with the article as well. Around 80% of all current job listings for “Graphic Designer” have some sort of web skill listed as a requirement, such as HTML/CSS or Flash. Computer Arts also ran a poll on their forum asking users “Should designers have to code?”; 66% said yes.

For the sake of communication, I personally feel it is important that any designer working with Flash, or another interactive medium, understand at least some basic development concepts. When a team of designers and developers both have some overlapping knowledge of the other’s trade, workflow is greatly improved. For instance, let’s say a designer and a developer are going to team up and build a custom component in Flash. If the designer has some good knowledge about how the developer will need to break up the different pieces of the component to attach classes and keep things scalable, this will save the developer a ton of time. Likewise, when the developer builds the component, having an eye for design will come in handy in making sure that everything looks just right and also adding that extra polish with some nice animations. Without that overlapping knowledge, the same process would have gone much less smoothly. Beyond the luxuries of having a team of designers and developers whom understand each other very well, it will only make you (as a designer or developer) more valuable.

Flash aside, what about how graphic designer positions are quickly becoming more of a jack-of-all-trades position? There are a lot of talented designers out there that no longer qualify for many positions simply because companies are trying to get the most bang for their buck. Should designers have to learn code to survive?

I’m a huge MK12 fan. Those guys have put out some of my all-time favorite motion and design pieces; simply amazing. Needless to say, I am pumped for them that they have launched their new site as well as moved into a new studio (which looks very awesome). Pictures of the new place are posted in the news section of their site.

In addition to all of this great news, they will be showing their highly anticipated History Of America short-film at a bunch of film festivals coming up. I can’t wait to see it!