ureadit

I’ve known about Adobe Flash for a number of years, but many of those years were spent in a sort of fog when it came to my knowledge of the details. I always knew that Flash was something that my web browser needed in order to display certain ads or to show video clips, and like most people, I simply said “Install Flash” when the dialog box popped up in my browser. I felt safe installing it, whatever it was, because I’d never heard of any problems with Flash installations. And besides, after I installed it, my browser could show me some really cool animations or play some videos.

Eventually, my level of intellectual curiosity surpassed my inherent laziness, so I decided to investigate exactly what Flash was. I started by approaching the web master at the company where I work, and he took about 20 minutes to give me a very simple, rational and thorough explanation. Suddenly, it was like the fog lifted, and I had an “Aha!” moment. In my enthusiasm, I rushed out and purchased the Creative Suite from Adobe, which also came with Dreamweaver, InDesign and Illustrator.

 

And then I dove in.

 

Like a lot of things, when I get excited about something, I can’t just walk away from it. In the case of Adobe Flash, I had to learn everything about developing applications, and I quickly became the local expert on the subject. The web master who’d taken time to explain Flash to me suddenly started asking me to develop some Flash content for him, as the level of my knowledge on this topic started to overtake his. No problem, I answered, happy to do the work.

Fast-forward to today, and I find myself developing some really challenging Flash applications. In fact, I think I might have gotten myself a bit over my head, because I am now under a deadline to develop a Flash application to run our company’s live online webinars. The webinars will go live in about three weeks, and I don’t even have an alpha copy of the software completed. I am integrating Flash with Akamai as well as an email database, and I’m feeling the heat of an approaching deadline. It’s all very much fun, but none of these responsibilities officially exist in my job description, so I’m spending a lot of my own time on it.

So here’s my point: I am committed to creating a five-part series designed to introduce you to Flash. I won’t go into details, nor will I demand that you follow along with your own copy of Flash; rather, I’ll simply write about what Flash is, what it’s capable of doing, and what you’ll need to know if you want to develop Flash applications. It’s a non-technical introduction to the topic, modeled on the conversation I had with the web master. Like my conversation with the web master, this introduction will – I hope – inspire you to go further.

Should you decide to go further and load the Adobe Flash development system on your PC (or Mac), Adobe has a 30-day trial period. It’s not a sufficient amount of time to learn very much, but it is long enough to let you know if you want to take it to the next step.

By the end of this week, I’ll have the first installment of this article under the “Answers” section of this website. BTW: The “Answers” section is new, and does not have any content. I reserved this space for in-depth series of articles.

Best,

Dan

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