Thursday Finds
Today is also a non-technical day, filled with well-written white papers. Grasp the finer details of web development issues, from a business-oriented standpoint:
- Short version of The Beekeeper – a gentle and intelligent introduction to open source and how it fits into business. James Dixon quashes misconceptions surrounding open source and illuminating the potential in the POSS business model.
- So You Want To Hire a SWF Developer? Joseph Balderson offers a few acceptable names to call “the person who builds SWF files” for a living.
- Understanding Web Design – Jeffrey Zeldman’s elegant article helps explain and clarify the complexities known as ‘Web Design.’
Help Resources
There are days when tutorials just won’t cut it. Is your question too advanced for the forums? Need to talk to a person instead?
Try connecting to a community of developers. Yahoo! Groups and the Figleaf Mailing Lists are great ways to find and talk to the pros. The ones I subscribe to are:
- Dreamweaver on Yahoo! Groups
- ActionScript Tiger on Yahoo! Groups
- Flash Newbies on Figleaf
- Flash Coders on Figleaf
Some quick tips before asking your first question:
- Search the archives. Chances are good that someone else had the same trouble.
- Be specific. If your question is too broad, it won’t get answered.
- Be brief. 2 page diatribes aren’t read. They’re trashed. Bonus points for clear, concise messages.
- Try a format. E-mails that can be skimmed are good. The ones that get responses are similar in format: a short paragraph to explain your problem, a question at the end of it, a few lines of code after. Complex questions sometimes have 3 paragraphs, a question or two, then some lines of code.
- Mark it OT if it’s a discussion question or off-topic. It signals to others that its something to read at leisure, not a pressing issue.
Thursday Finds
It seems web services will get no winter break. Sigh. No rest for the wicked, I suppose 
Enjoy a few good links, on me:
- devlisting.com – all things web developer/web designer-oriented. A resource that lists links for each subject, with the best resources are pinned to the top.
- Good News for anyone who embeds Flash into web pages. Although I plan on continuing to use SWFObject, because it is gracefully solves more than one problem.
- Open Clip Art Library provides high quality, royalty free vector art in SVG format. Great for Flash projects.*
*Note: While you cannot directly import SVG files into Flash, Creative Suite 3 gracefully handles this: open in Illustrator, copy and paste directly into Flash. CS3 translates it into a workable vector file, ready to use in Flash.
