Digital Motion dot net

Conveying data that spans more than 2 dimensions is classically difficult. In fact, successful representations like the map of Napoleon’s march from CJ Minard are celebrated. I saw this Flash thing from the New York Times representing box office returns from Hollywood films and I was really impressed how nice a job it did showing some disparate things in a cohesive way. Worth taking a look at if you think about this kind of stuff.

Jumpcut - Flash Player 10 Astro Sneak Peek at MAX Chicago 2007 Keynote

The last part is my favorite part of course!

via Aral Balkan

What I like about these new web-based media tools isn’t just that they make it easier for normal people to do media editing, but they really show the power of Flash/Flex in a mind-blowing way.

I may post my source of this eventually, but for now I’m just wondering if there is a better way to do this. I spent a long time searching, but had zero luck. The existing mechanisms to integrate a paypal button into a flash site require the URLLoader class which doesn’t exist in AS3.

After spending a bunch of time searching the flex and paypal sites, I was getting really discouraged.

Finally, I came up with this hack:

I use the ExternalInterface to “shell out” to javascript where I create the form that paypal needs dynamically in Javascript and then submit it (also dynamically). It works, but it really seems like a hack to me.

Is there a better way to do this?

wow, this is a great resource

This article about moms growing their own businesses as photographers thanks to the new generation of inexpensive high-end digital SLRs got me thinking again about the opportunities. Not just the ones for the moms, but also the businesses mentioned in the article, BluDomain and BigBlackBag who are small start-ups catering to the DIY-folks and have their own interesting (and inexpensive to start) business models.

Finally, this article on advertainment (also from NYT) reminded me how the driving force financially behind most creative businesses is the advertising agency. This is a bit of a tougher market to get into for individuals, but little studios can get attention for themselves, starting small, and get into this business eventually.

Then again, why do work for hire if you don’t have to?

Free vector web page elements [part 1, part 2, part 3]

Scale Nine: Articles, Samples and How-Tos

Designing Flex2 Skins

Ted on Flex: Component Resources

Lawrence Lessig - Copyright Policy: Orphaned Works Reform
Master Plan - About the power of Google

Both of these pieces are doing something similar. They are using motion graphics and typeography to help illustrate and enliven spoken word material. I think that the Master Plan piece is better visually (which is admittedly much easier at 3:15 instead of 36:00. However, the content of Lawrence Lessig’s piece is far more effective if only because he is much more experienced at speaking and he is much more knowledgeable about his topic. It definitely shows how substance can beat out style, but it also shows how compelling voices and messages are really the most important part of a informational, educational or political piece.

The Lawrence Lessig film is below:

Picnik - “edit photos the easy way, online in your browser”

This is cute. Not insanely featured, but a nice proof of concept for Flex. Maybe ’cause I write image processing code for a living, these things are really interesting to me. This would be a great Apollo shareware app. I also like that they are in Seattle. Maybe the local startup market is improving.

I realized that I hadn’t looked at Flash Insider in quite a while. So, I stopped by only to find out that it had shut down! Anyways, it reminded me of some stuff that I’d been meaning to post anyways…

Cromm Cruac is a portfolio site with some really nice Flash work, the interface is a bit challenging, but really rich.

Hoss Gifford doesn’t want Flash authors to use their own scrollbars while there exist just fine ones in the browser. I agree with him to the extent that if you are doing a text-heavy html-like site doing a non-standard scrollbar is dumb. Then again, if you are doing a site like that, why do it in Flash anyway?

If you haven’t checked out the swfObject before, you should. It is very useful for all your embedding needs.

Finally, Daniel Tietze tell you how to make your own uTube.