August 2003
Taylor likes to point out that “99% of programming is resisting the temptation to be a dumbass.” Indeed.
So, Macromedia has finally split Flash in two. Lots of new features, etc… among the more notable are timeline-alternative authoring metaphors (forms and slides), the addition of Dreamweaver-esque behaviors, and (finally!) an option to turn off antialiasing for individual bits of text. Now to go door-to-door forcing everyone to upgrade their plugin!
ps - Oh, and ActionScript 2.0. Strict typing - eek!
Well, everyone else has photos on their weblogs… sure maybe it’s a little self-indulgent, but I’ll try to keep the photos vaguely on-topic.
Jorge Luis Borges, who I apparently need immediately to reread, describes a faceted classification scheme which divides animals into 14 categories (“those that belong to the Emperor,” “embalmed ones,” “stray dogs,” and so on). Don’t just think you get the point and move on. Go read the list, it’s quite amazing.
A friend just sent me an email with a link using TinyURL.com. This is a brilliant little utility, where you can substitute a short URL for those ridiculous mapquest (or whatever) URLs that always break in email.
Wooster Collective is a collection of photographs of mostly NYC street art (stickers, stencils, grafitti, etc.), interviews with artists from around the world, and links to street artists you may have seen in one of those hip magazines you fancy. And from there, I’m sure you can find enough related sites to keep you clicking for days.
Self-defence with a Walking-stick: The Different Methods of Defending Oneself with a Walking-Stick or Umbrella when Attacked under Unequal Conditions (PartI) (via caterina)
Macromedia FlashPaper is basically a PDF substitute, using Flash and therefore able to display within a web page. Some fairly serious limitations, though: “FlashPaper documents can only be viewed in a web page, so you can’t email FlashPaper documents directly to others. The text in FlashPaper documents cannot be searched or selected by website visitors.” Still, I really like the combination of being able to view the document within a web page and being able to print it from there, all without having to launch a helper app.
OK, this is silly, but I thought this game was soooo cool back in ‘85 or whenever: Atari Adventure in Flash
Zeldman: Designing With Web Standards
Of course, as with most CSS/XHTML sites, all the examples have relatively similar columnar layouts. It’s no accident that news and corporate marketing sites have been the first to embrace CSS/XHTML. Compare the amazing work Move Design has been doing in Flash (“the grid is dead, long live the grid!”).
Recent work, part 2: Clement Mok has re-released his iconic stock art collection with a new subscription model: CMCD - Visual Symbols Library. Information Architecture courtesy of Giant Ant.
There are some killer posters in the Carnegie Mellon Swiss Poster Collection. Too bad the scans aren’t bigger, though.