//beconfused

It’s always risky to build an entire web site with Macromedia Flash. Although Macromedia claims to have more than 90% of the PC users having Flash installed, it’s still isn’t enticing enough for some web developers to build a Flash web site.

Do I like Flash? Yes and no; I would have to say I do though. Maybe you don’t know about this - Flash is the gateway into programming personally. Back then in secondary school, I like these animation stuff. I often wonder how the hell do they build such beautiful moving images with sound. However, what I was seeing isn’t Flash, it’s another Macromedia product called Shockwave. Let’s not go into explaining what’s the difference between them.

That got me all started. Nice Shockwave games. Cool looking too, I love to be able to do that. That’s why I start using Flash [okay, I know it doesn't make sense].

It started off with “tweening”, one vector image “morphing” into another. Simple, looks sweet too. A year passed quickly, I am still stuck at that part of Flash - creating simple vector images that flies in and hops out. How un-entertaining.

Soon, I start downloading tutorials created by other people from the then FlashPlanet (now FlashKit I think). Many of the tutorials contained programming language that I don’t understand. I avoid them as much as possible. Once I see programming language that I don’t understand, I just hit the delete button in Windows Explorer. I was being foolish. Because at the end of the day, I only know how to go to a particular location in my time line. And believe it or not, I manage to create a presentation with just that command [it's quite ugly as far as I can recall].

What’s missing in the presentation however, is that it doesn’t allow more than just a button click interaction. Flash is about interaction. That is when I start to explore into the programming part of Flash. It was then I realized the name of the programming language. It’s called ActionScript. I thought it was C language, lol. I thought so because that is the only language that I have heard of. And there was a time when I thought C language means computer language and all computer applications are written in C language. Apparently not.

I wouldn’t say I explored it very willing, I recall the times I cursed the developer for using creating this language which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. What I thought would work, simply don’t. I don’t understand the syntax, I don’t understand the methods. You can say I caught no ball.

However, it’s the aim to create better looking Flash animations that drives me ahead. I look at other’s works and thought that I want to be able to make this.

It was then when the books start coming in, I start to read and read. I can’t say I understand these books fully. Maybe a quarter of it only. It’s really hard to understand without someone guiding me, you know.

It’s a really funny reading experience. I start reading from the introduction to somewhere in the middle of the book. I usually don’t understand the rest of it any more. Or perhaps, by the time I read to the middle of the book, it’s time to return to the community library. Introduction easily become my favorite part of the book. I just love the way the authors introduction the Flash language. It’s probably also because that’s one of the few parts of the book I understand.

There is a reason why I called my reading experience a funny one. When I first started reading these books, I can only understand the first 3 chapters maybe. But I’ll just continue to read through even when I don’t understand. The subsequent times I read the books, I start understand them better and better. I think it’s something to do with the way the book author tries to convey his knowledge. So reading more really helps. If only if I can do the same for those English novels. Oh well.

Anyway, I went on to submit Flash presentations to school projects. It’s very extra, frankly speaking. I mean, just when your classmates are submitting PowerPoint presentations, you threw a Flash one. Talking about being really extra. But I always try to make the Flash presentations. I just love to make them. They are fun to make. It’s very satisfying to see the whole thing integrate together.

Right now, I wouldn’t say my Flash skills are anywhere near good. I think they’re okay. I can do codes here and there, but they ain’t fantastic. Just when I thought my knowledge of programming would probably have gone to waste, something revived it.

That was when the time when I checked out my then coming semester’s modules. There is one that called itself “Visual Basic .NET Programming”. While both languages (Visual Basic .NET and Flash ActionScript) are very different, it did provided me with a good-enough head-start in this module.

And you wonder why am I writing about this. I use saw a Flash animation that looked rather cool. The designer took numerous still images to create this. Must have been some really hardworking designer. You can view the Flash animation of the product demonstration of Creative Portable Media Center here.

This news caught my attention. I didn’t know Adobe Photoshop CS has such interesting technologies in their applications.

Adobe, others slip anticounterfeiting code into apps

Adobe and other makers of image-manipulation programs have inserted secret technology into their programs to foil counterfeiting. Users of Adobe Photoshop CS and Jasc’s Paintshop Pro have complained that files containing images of the new U.S. $20 bill and several Euro denominations cannot be opened. The code to detect such images came from the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group, an association representing the national banks from Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The creator of the technology, Digimarc, confirmed that it had produced the code under contract to the banking group.

As early as 2000, the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group started approaching companies that made image manipulation programs as well as color printers, asking them to include such technologies in their products. The European Central Bank has requested a legislation that would make the inclusion of such technology mandatory.

In the United States, such technology goes beyond the requirements of the law. U.S. artists are able to scan and use the image of currency in their works as long as the image is less than 75 percent or greater than 150 percent of the dimensions of the original bill. Artists are also required to only make single-sided prints of the image and to destroy the digital copy when the work is done.

Now artists will have to download images from a legal source, such as the U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving.

Yet, one poster to Adobe’s forums found that even bank-provided images of currencies couldn’t be opened. A collage of several denominations from a Swedish bank couldn’t be opened.

“This is insane,” the person wrote. “Nobody, and certainly not software I pay for, should have any say of what sort of image I am allowed to open.”

Source: CNet

I don’t think Adobe and the others have the right to include such technologies without telling the public about it first. Plus the legislation hasn’t been in action yet I believe. Damn, now I’ve got to find other software to print currencies. Opps.