In no particular order or domain, here are a few things that are itching me into 2009…

Much of this post relates to making a great iPhone app. Hopefully, you’ll connect the dots on how this might impact how you develop whatever else it is you’re developing.

Anyone hear about Adobe’s Open Screen Project? Well, good news if this is the first you’re hearing about it:
Basically, what’s happened is that Adobe wants Flash on as many screens and devices as possible. To do that, they’re pretty much COMPLETELY OPENING UP THE PLATFORM. What does “completely opening up the platform” actually mean?
* Removing restrictions on the use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications
* Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
* Removing license fees – making next major releases of Adobe Flash …

So, in ActionScript 2.0, there existed such a thing as *attachSound* which would allow you to call on sounds in your library and iterate them in code much like you would call on movieclips in the library.
With ActionScript 3.0, there is no attachSound, so you need to do a little workaround. It took me a while to find this, but here you go:

import flash.utils.getDefinitionByName;
import flash.media.Sound;

var mySound:Sound;

var librarySound:Class = getDefinitionByName ( “nameOfYourSoundasLinkedFromTheLibrary” ) as Class;

mySound = new librarySound();

Basically, anything that you’re referring to as an Object in ActionScript 3.0 seems …

There’s been some fantastic writing of late in the realm of digital learning, education and training. I don’t know if I know about it more because the tools for sharing via RSS are more ubiquitous or there are just more people writing about it — but the point is that ten years ago, this was a professional field that didn’t even exist as its own discipline (but for the Authorware folks) and now we have hundreds of bloggers building up the calluses in their fingertips as they blog away …

Adobe just released a free and open-source Java implementation of flash/flex remoting service called Blaze DS for Java.
This is pretty huge for people, as it supports remoting to the new AMF version (3) which just got documentation released, but it also supports remoting and polling over port 80 — so no more getting blocked out behind firewall constraints (a common theme today?). And, did I mention — it’s FREE?
So this will allow Flash and Flex developers to do realtime data manipulation with databases through this Java service — and …

[](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0789737027?ie=UTF8&tag=mrchompersnet-20) With my 3G iPod nano, I’ve run the course on getting my learn on as far as adjusting my fantasy football team or catching up on political satire. This weekend I was getting jiggy with ActionScript 3 and actively sought out what podcasts might be available, video or otherwise, on the subject.
I didn’t find much. However, I found at least one use of podcasting that are extending the official knowledge out there. I’ve been reading the [ActionScript 3.0 Game Programming University](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0789737027?ie=UTF8&tag=mrchompersnet-20) by Gary Rosenzweig off my [Safari](http://safari.oreilly.com) …

A thought just occurred to me, and I hope it spurs some discussion from the Flash coders that are among us.
So OpenDocument Format is an approved ISO standard for Office-type documents, including spreadsheets. In fact, ISO is in the process of moving the standard forward to version 1.2, where it’s expected that tables will be supported in the presentations created in ODF.
Lots of us who build custom courses are using our own XML Schema to fill-in the content of Flash-based online courses. But… what if a bunch of …

I could just punt my Macbook Pro right about now.
It’s a good thing I did a full backup last week of my drive using SuperDuper. If you’re thinking about upgrading your Mac to Leopard, here are some words of advice:
Most of you are probably okay with doing just an upgrade, in which case if Flash is working already, you’re in the clear.
But for those of you like me who are especially anal about upgrades and look at them as a time to flush out the crap and do a …

Sorry for being silent for so long (again… again). There’s a lot going on with work that’s been keeping me busy enough to ignore blogging on all my sites.
I wanted to propose a podcast curriculum where I’ll talk to something having to do with SCORM and Flash in small chunks, and hopefully keep it light, somewhat entertaining but valuable and focused.
So from the feedback I’m gathering in comments on the SCORM 1.2 ExternalInterface demo, here’s what I think you need to start with:

Content Package and the Manifest in SCORM …