The 2008 update!

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Hello!

I haven’t posted anything in quite a while, but I suppose I’ve been busy enough to justify it. So, I’ll start with an update to what I’ve been doing over the last few months:

  1. Rebuilding the YouTube video players. Nearly from scratch. More on this later.
  2. Helping out here and there with SWFObject 2.0 – It’s nearly complete, go try it out. This is a completely rewritten version (sorry, not backwards compatible), but we think it’s an overall better solution to any other Flash embed method out there.
  3. We got a puppy.
  4. Mostly enjoying San Francisco. The city is a pretty cool place to live. If you’re a nerd. So far it doesn’t quite measure up to New York City, but it’s still growing on me. My main complaint is that everyone here is crazy crazy crazy about the hot new web startups or who you work for and what you can do for them. New York had a little bit of this, but at the same time there was so much other diversity of interests it just seemed so much more interesting. I used to think that a city full of nerds would be awesome, but now I’m not so sure. Anyway, enough of the SF bashing :).

In a couple of weeks I’ll be heading off to my first SXSW. Should be very exciting, as I normally just hang out with Flash or Javascript nerd conferences, but this one seems so much bigger.

SWFObject 2.0 Beta

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Today at Adobe MAX I’ll be giving a presentation with Michael Williams on the next version of SWFObject (previously the SWFFix project). As most of you probably know, I’ve been working on a project with Bobby van der Sluis and Michael Williams (From Adobe) that was going to become the de-facto standard for embedding Flash/Flex content. Well we decided that we didn’t like the new name all that much, so we are adopting the SWFObject name for the project.

The new version is a complete rewrite from SWFObject 1.5, so we’ll need lots of testing before we officially launch it and replace the older SWFObject and UFO scripts, and since we have Adobe involved, they will be including this embed system in the Adobe authoring tools in the future.

The SWFObject project is moving to Google Code, where you can download the source from svn, grab the latest build, or file bugs or read documentation.

I’ve also created a new Google Group for SWFObject support questions and discussion.

If you are at MAX today, our presentation is at 2:45pm in room W-196c and it’s called “Flash Detection and Embedding: An open source solution”.

If you can’t make it today, we’ll be doing it again tomorrw (Wednesday) at 11am in room W-185d.

The SWFFix alpha is up

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Bobby put up the SWFFix alpha earlier today – I’ve been at the Ajax experience (with no wireless internet access, wtf?!) so haven’t had time to put together a post about it, but here’s a quick one.

We also announced that we are now working with Micheal Williams from Adobe – the author of the Adobe Flash Detection kit to make sure SWFFix can cover all the bases and be used by anyone. Very cool!

Go check out the dev blog and grab the files, then read the docs and try it out. Feedback is very welcome, so soak it in and let us know what you think.

Speaking at the Ajax Experience

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I just found out the other day that the Ajax Experience has invited me to come talk about Flash to a bunch of Ajax nerds this July. This should be a really fun one (no, really!). My talk will be on how to use Flash *with* that fancy Ajax app you are building, so enhance it and give it that little extra kick. Think of it as an introduction to using Flash happily with Ajax techniques.

It’s got a fantastic lineup if you are into the whole Ajax thing, so I definitely suggest checking it out.

Check out my session outline for more info.

Also: Flashbelt is only 2 weeks away! It’s JUNE already. Time to hit the upper midwest and talk Flash with all the cool Flash nerds again. If you haven’t looked at Flashbelt and are itching for a conference, this will be a nice one to check out.

UPDATE: Apparently, there’s only 50 tickets left for Flashbelt, so get your tickets now if you are planning on going!