“Chris Ware has returned with another animated opening for THIS AMERICAN LIFE.”

“SWFAddress is a small script that sits on top of SWFObject and provides deep linking for Flash websites and applications. In other words it enables the Back, Forward and Reload buttons of the browser and creates unique URLs with page titles that can be sent over email or IM. SWFAddress uses the ExternalInterface functionality introduced in Flash Player 8 and comes with a technique that enables search engine indexing for deep Flash links.” (Thanks jonnymac!)

Find the 25 graphic and publication design terms before time runs out — and maybe win a poster. (Thanks Coudal Partners!)

“1 Bit Audio Player is a very simple and lightweight Adobe Flash MP3 player with automatic JavaScript insertion. Its main purpose is to act as a quick in-page preview for audio files you link to from your website or blog. The player can be easily installed as a WordPress plugin or used stand-alone in any website. Small audio players will than automatically appear next to any MP3s you link to.”

You’ve already seen this, but I’ve been out sick so I’m posting it anyway. This is a really slick Flash interface that displays the scale of just about everything. From humans to plants, chromosomes to trees, mountains to dogs. Nice.

“The rise of Flash video from relative obscurity to a web standard is a fascinating tale. There is no one date we can point to and say, ‘This is when it happened.’ Some would point to Flash MX and the inclusion of the Sorenson Spark codec. Others will claim it was Flash Professional MX 2004 that really got things started, and a valid case can be made for the current iteration of Flash (Flash Professional 8) and the improved FLV Playback component which seems to be so ubiquitous in today’s video experience. For me, Flash Video became ‘real’ in 2000.”

“Some links to celebrate Flash’s 10th anniversary.”

“I’ve decided it’s about time I learnt some Flash, mainly because of the exciting opportunities posed by the Flash-JavaScript bridge. It’s become pretty obvious now that Flash is the most practical option for dealing with audio and video on the Web, and the bridge means that anything Flash can do is now available to JavaScript as well. Google Finance and the Yahoo! JS-Flash Maps API are just two recent examples of why this stuff is worth knowing more about. I have minimal design skills, so much of the Flash literature out there isn’t much use to me. Does anyone have any recommendations for books and tutorials on Flash aimed at programmers?”

“As some might remember, in 2004 Microsoft lost a lawsuit to Eolas Technologies concerning a patent for ‘Distributed hypermedia method for automatically invoking external application providing interaction and display of embedded objects within a hypermedia document’ In short, Eolas holds the patent for how things like flash and quicktime/mediaplayer movies are added to a website — in any browser… Two days ago Microsoft released a preview of the ActiveX update for MSDN subscribers. This update is a workaround — or so Microsoft claim[s] — to the patent, but it also means a very different approach to adding embedded content in Internet Explorer… The ActiveX update makes a very simple change. It prevents you from automatically interacting with an embedded object — like a Flash movie. You have to activate it first.”

“In the pale-skinned and over-caffeinated world of Internet designers, Joshua Davis is a rock star–the Tommy Lee of digerati. A self-taught Flash master, he rose to prominence in the ’90s with his work for the now-defunct Web design firm Kioken, as well as his personal sites: dreamless.org, a once hugely popular message board for the design community, and the open source Flash laboratory/showcase praystation.com.” (Thanks kottke.org!)

Prett darn nice: “SimpleViewer is a free, customizable Flash image viewing application.”

“This is an example of linking to specific states within rich internet applications. Note that the application states are described with # anchors at the end of the URL just like specific locations in an HTML page. As the state in the application changes, the URL updates and can be bookmarked to return to that particular state. In this example, each photo represents one of five different application states in Flash…” (Thanks Andre!)

“It’s been well over ten years now since the debut of the graphical web browser and we still don’t have an easy way to deliver rich typography using HTML/CSS. With CSS we can size, style, color, kern, show, and hide our text but we can’t deliver something classical typesetters have delivered since at least the 15th century: custom typography. Until now.”

“…Breeze helps your organization communicate, collaborate and train online with ease… [It’s] a rich Web communications system that enables efficient meetings without travel, compelling presentations without meetings and efficient training without delays.

“Quite often I receive emails inquiring about various Flash pieces Iíve created, and the one that has attracted the most attention (and requests for source code) is the dynamic, cross-fading image loader used on The 2003 PGA Championship. After recently revisiting the source, and completely overhauling it for a probono project I was asked to contribute to, I thought now would be a good time to distribute the source as a free download.”