News & Comment
Flash's
back...
Flash,
Macromedia's popular web animation
software, has been the subject of a number of announcements we've been
getting recently. I'll give you a more thorough review of a couple of
websites in the coming weeks, but for now I'd like to recommend an excellent
Flash
vs. Director comparison by Krister Olssen of Webmonkey.
Students in my Director class often ask the same question, so here's my quick summary:
If you are creating animation for the web (or want to get a job doing it) learn and use Flash. Because it's vector-based, animations look great and download fast.
If you want to create rich interactive content for delivery via CD-ROM, kiosk or stand-alone computer, Director gives you great freedom to mix images, audio, video, and all sorts of user-driven interaction with its relatively easy to learn programming language, Lingo.
There are many other factors to consider, of course, and the Webmonkey article does a good job.
Giving
it away
No response
to last month's article asking
design educators to send samples of their syllabi or course material
to add to our popular [EDUCATION] section.
Maybe this is an idea whose time hasn't come?
This
month's banner graphic
It's night,
it's neon, it's just off Times Square in NYC a few years ago, before
Disney cleaned it all up.
I'm not sure if this adult bookstore/porn shop, billing itself as "The Only Visual Interactive Experience In Town" is still there. If it's gone, the walk down the street will be a bit less intimidating for some, and New York will be a bit more like Main Street USA. As cities everywhere scramble to be "tourist-friendly" by offering the same set of familiar, logo-splashed experiences the unique texture of the city disappears.
For more impressions of New York, see New York Minute.
Updates
If you pay
close attention you may have noticed that our monthly updates are happening
later & later in the month. As we get further into the Fall semester
at school my schedule gets more crowded with meetings, grading projects,
and keeping ahead of students who want to learn more & faster. My
plan is to use the Thanksgiving break in November to get the December
update out on time. We'll see. Please be patient, I'm typing as fast
as I can.
- Al Wasco 10/10/00
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PREVIOUSLY...
School's
in... Smackdown scores... give it away...
[Sept. 2000]
Lust objects...
Usability Nazis... Mac vs. Windows Smackdown!
[August 2000]
New magazines...
Fireworks revisited... Director doomed?
[July 2000]
Cancer on
the Web?... Barcelona... New CD-ROMs
[June 2000]
Kent State
remembered... AIGA-Advance...
[May 2000]
Macintosh
myopia... Lab survey... Student web projects...
[Apr. 2000]
Flash animation:
devil or angel?... Mexican graffiti...
[Mar. 2000]
Web usability...
Mexican graveyards... online Valentine cards...
[Feb. 2000]
Yahoo!...
CoolSTOP Award... Multimedia, the Web & CD-ROM...
[Jan. 2000]
Our new look...
Goodbye, AOL... Ideas for critiques...
[Dec. 1999]
What I know
about you... Teaching computer-based media... Nudes in Parma
[Nov. 1999]
Graffiti
& hip-hop... Better critiques... Photoshop 5.5 vs. Fireworks 2
[Oct. 1999]
Swiss
Design Quiz... Barcelona... AIGA / NASAD briefing
paper...
[Sept.
1999]
Upgrade
junkies,
Part 1.
[Aug. 1999]
Report
from International Design Conference at Aspen
[July 1999]
"Interactive
Design" or "New Media?"
[July 1999]
If no author
name is show, article is written by Al Wasco, author of this
website.
©1999, 2000
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