Entries Tagged 'Uncategorized' ↓

If you are interested in getting a head start on Flash 9 and ActionScript 3, you can download Adobe Labs Flash 9 preview (Windows only).

It will allow you to develop in AS2 (and will let you compile your existing projects) as well as AS3. It looks and feels a lot like Flash 8 but includes a much richer feature set if you use AS3. I tried it out with Lab 1 and it works great.

Other useful tools are:

• Freemind Mindmaps for designing your projects and organizing your thoughts –even your notes on ActionScript.
• There’s a free swf viewer for your MindMaps so you can share them with others on the web. Here’s a demo of this and you can navigate to download it here.
• GIMP is a free image authoring tool.
• Inkscape is a free vector illustration tool.

These are all high quality tools comparable to more expensive tools. And all of these sorts of tools are indispensible for interaction design work.

This blog is intended to document my journey through school. I’m in the process of applying to the doctorate program in Communications Design at the University of Baltimore Information Arts and Technologies Department. I’ve already spent a ton of time in graduate school while working on a PhD at Georgetown University in Computational Linguistics (I’d written about 150 pages toward my dissertation when I lost momentum and became more interested in web technologies). The Baltimore program is an applied doctorate and focuses on the art and practice of Communications and Interaction Design and is definitely more aligned with my current interests and career path. My first course is one in Interactive Multimedia taught by Kathleen Harmeyer. It’s really a Flash 8 programming course, from my perspective. In any case, I will be documenting what I learn as I learn it. This blog should slowly transform and take on more character as I have time to modify it. Meanwhile, you can always visit my K9 SAR blog…