Macromedia Review

Introducing Graphic Mania forum

2008-08-28T07:14:00.001Z

We are happy to present to you Graphic Mania forum. The forum let you share knowledge and get support from the Adobe Community Expert about any problem you face as well as a job forum that allows you to free submit to your job post or your resume.

Visit the Graphic Mania forum here.

2008-08-28T07:14:00.000Z

Button & Movieclip actions in Action Script 3

2008-05-27T10:04:00.000Z

Introduction
The way Action Script deals with events on buttons and movie clips is totally different than the old one we used to do with Action Script 2, but generally it is more professional and saves time and effort if you understood it well.

The new Action Script 3 is showing a new trend on the Action Script language by moving to the Object oriented programming concept. However, I wanted in this article to show for Flash designer how the new AS3 deal with movie clips and button events since it is one of the AS basics that any Flash designer or animation must be aware of it.

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Adobe Soundbooth CS4 Beta

2008-05-27T10:02:00.000Z

Take command of your everyday audio needs for film, video, and SWF or FLV files and projects with the convenient, task-based tools found in Adobe® Soundbooth® software.

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Adobe Fireworks CS4 Beta

2008-05-27T09:58:00.000Z

Try Adobe® Fireworks® software to rapidly prototype websites, application interfaces, and other interactive designs. Create, edit, and optimize web graphics more accurately and faster than ever with the enhanced toolset. Demo your design live for your client, or e-mail an interactive PDF file. Leverage the new user interface and core functionality such as consistent text handling and the Adobe type engine. Output your Fireworks designs to the application platform of your choice: Adobe AIR™, Flash®, Flex®, or HTML. In addition, export web standards–compliant, CSS-based layouts — complete with external style sheets — to Adobe Dreamweaver®.

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Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 Beta

2008-05-27T09:51:00.000Z

Adobe® Dreamweaver® software is the ideal tool for web designers, coders, and application developers of all levels. Enhanced coding functions make it a breeze to navigate through complex site pages at design time. Improved layout tools bring expedited workflows, from comp conception to client approval. Innovations throughout the Dreamweaver beta can help teams and individual developers alike reach the next level in performance and functionality. Download the prerelease of the next version of Dreamweaver now and send us your feedback. The Dreamweaver beta will expire soon after the next version of Dreamweaver is available for purchase.

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Practical Color Management: Eddie Tapp on Digital Photography

2008-05-26T09:37:00.001Z

By Eddie Tapp, Rick Lucas
The second book in this acclaimed series delves into color management, a topic that has needlessly become a mystery to experienced digital photographers. With his easygoing yet authoritative style, noted expert Eddie Tapp explains how color management can be integrated into the overall photographic workflow. Included is a chapter on technical aspects from color guru Rick Lucas.

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Reviewing Adobe Flash CS3 Professional HOW-TOs

2008-05-12T10:25:00.001Z

Adobe Press continues to add new member to its HOW-TOs series. The most advantage of reading this series that it gives you a rapid launch with deep understanding for the software. The tricks and tips help you start creating your own projects while you are learning more features.

Read the full review

Adobe and Industry Leaders Establish Open Screen Project

2008-05-01T11:51:00.002Z

For immediate release
Technology and Content Innovators to Drive Consistent Rich Internet Experiences Across Multiple Screens

SAN JOSE, Calif. — May 1, 2008 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the Open Screen Project, supported by a group of industry leaders, including ARM, Chunghwa Telecom, Cisco, Intel, LG Electronics Inc., Marvell, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics Co., Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Verizon Wireless. The project is dedicated to driving rich Internet experiences across televisions, personal computers, mobile devices, and consumer electronics. Also supporting the Open Screen Project are leading content providers, including BBC, MTV Networks, and NBC Universal, who want to reliably deliver rich Web and video experiences live and on-demand across a variety of devices.

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Color Management in Digital Photography

2008-04-30T11:36:00.000Z

Ten Easy Steps to True Colors in Photoshop
By Brad Hinkel

Color Management in Digital Photography simplifies the complex language of color management in digital photography. Author, Brad Hinkel's process for moving images from capture to print while maintaining color management, provides enough information to create a simple yet effective system, while allowing the photographer to get on with photography. Based on classes and workshops given by Hinkel to hundreds of students of digital photography, this simple approach to color management does not mean it sacrifices quality and effectiveness.

Color management is one of the essential elements, yet major stumbling blocks in digital photography. The vast majority of digital photographers really wish they didn't have to be concerned with color management, yet the basic process of moving images from capture to print becomes impractical without it. And the more sophisticated the photography workflow becomes, the more important it is to manage colors from capture to print.
In this book, Brad Hinkel simplifies the language of color management. It is based on classes and workshops the author has given to hundreds of students of digital photography. His process for color management is intended to provide enough information to create a simple and effective system allowing the user to get on with photography - focus on creativity instead of technology. However, the fact that this book suggests a simple approach to color management does not mean it sacrifices quality and effectiveness. Simpler is usually better - if it works.

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/1933952024/#top

The Artist's Guide to GIMP Effects

2008-04-20T08:51:00.001Z

Creative Techniques for Photographers, Artists, and Designers
By Michael J. Hammel

In The Artist’s Guide to GIMP Effects, artists and graphics professionals will learn how to use the GIMP and its tools to produce specific effects. Short, extensively illustrated tutorials cover a broad range of real-world projects that will be useful to those working in areas such as print advertisements, web design, photography, and user interface design.

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New Graphic and Animation Forum

2008-04-17T23:48:00.000Z

Graphic Mania Forum is a new forum for graphic, design, web and animation maniacs. The forum is frequently updated with resources, tutorial tips, articles and free stuff to share and talk about.

I will be happy to provide free support and consulation about any graphic, web, design or animation issues.

Join the new forum here and spread your ideas to the world

Reviewing Adobe Flash CS3 Professional Book (Reviewed By Rafiq Elmansy)

2008-04-14T13:12:00.004Z

Published by admin at 5:00 pm under Book Reviews Edit This

The video training book is another amazing tutorial idea from Lynda publisher, it gather s the both benefits of getting the info from books and quickly learn things via video training.

The Adobe Flash CS3 Professional: Video Training Book for Rich Shupe gives teaches you all the essential information needed to start working with Flash CS3 professional with both paper and video materials.

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Moneybookers.com. upload, transfer and earn money

2007-12-25T14:27:00.000Z

I have been using moneybookers.com as a method for online line money transfer for a around a year. It is a good way to transfer money especially when it is supported in almost all the countries. Now, it is offering a way to earn money by referring friends to use it, here is the link to to start joining them and referring friends.

10% discount on the uCertify PrepKit For Graphic Mania readers

2007-12-20T11:51:00.000Z

uCertify PrepKit is provding a special Christmas offer for Graphicmania.net readers. uCertify provides a 10% discount on the uCertify PrepKit of your choice. uCertify PrepKit provides a comprehensive exam tests for various types of exams including Adobe products exams.

Adobe After Effects CS3 Review

2007-12-16T11:32:00.000Z

The first word that comes to my head when I think in Adobe After Effects CS3 is Integration. The new version of Adobe After Effects enters a new era of integration between it and the other CS3 family. You can integrate your work between Adobe After Effects and Photoshop easily, import styles to After Effects and create 3D compositions from the Vanishing Point feature in Photoshop…etc.
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Adobe Photoshop Certification Exam Best Training Resource from uCertify

2007-11-26T08:36:00.000Z

The certification exams not only helps you getting a self confidence, but also, gives the power of your resume to convince the employers to hire you or promote you in you current job. uCertify.com is providing a great training kit for Adobe products certification exams. Although, the last update is for Adobe Photoshop CS2, but I think it is very helpful to get a clue about the exam environment and got prepared for the real exam using a set of exams and questions that helps you to judge your level and enhance your exam skills to cover all of the Adobe Photoshop features. In this review, we will have a deeper look to the Photoshop exam tool kit and see how it takes your hand along the way to gain the Adobe Photoshop Certification Exam.
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Creating video content for mobile devices

2007-11-20T06:29:00.000Z

Prepare and deploy video on devices in 3G mobile or FLV format for either Flash Lite 2 or Flash Lite 3. This is the subject of my new article ( Creating video content for mobile devices) on Adobe Device Central. Read the full article here

Adobe Buzzword review part02: Dash Board

2007-11-15T11:56:00.000Z

The second part of the detailed review for Adobe new word processing web application (Buzzword) is now alive at www.graphicmania.com.
The new part gives a brief about the Buzzword dashboard and its features, find it here.

Adobe Buzzword (Adobe free word-processing web application) Introduction

2007-11-12T10:48:00.000Z

Recently, Adobe acquired the online word processing application, Buzzword. The new free application provides a new promising idea about turning your word processing activity into the web and gives you the ability to share documents with friends. The new web application provides you the ability to save files in different formats including .RTF and .DOC files.
This is part of the first post of a series of reviews about the new BuzzWord features. Find here more

Advertise at Graphic Mania

2007-11-11T10:54:00.000Z

Graphic Mania is offering site banners space on graphicmania.net for site related topics. Our site banner package includes various types of options and can create your own package that fit with your needs and your budget.
Click here to know more about advertising on Graphic Mania and the limited offer.

Adobe Share Beta

2007-11-04T10:57:00.000Z

A new post to review in a breif the new Adobe web application, Adobe Share beta, the new software that allows to easily share and store files remotily with frieds or to use from any where, here is the new review

So you think you are a Creative Person (Tell about you)

2007-10-21T07:03:00.001Z

The creative person could be a designer, coder or a project manager, in this article, I am addressing the graphic designers, web designers, animations and photographers who enjoy the pain of the new idea and controlled by it.

Through my working experience as a graphic and web designer, I saw that the real creative person is driven with his or here creative nature. The love of the new ideas, the desire to be part of it drives him/her to choose him/her career.
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Graphic Mania Adobe Photoshop review on Adobe site

2007-10-19T19:40:00.000Z

While I was checking the Photoshop CS3 reviews page on Adobe site, I was so happy to see my review for the new Adobe Photoshop CS3 has been posted to the reviews page. Here is the Adobe Photoshop review page on Adobe site and here is a direct link to my reivew on graphicmania site.

Reviewing Adobe Photoshop CS3 one-on-one (by: Rafiq Elmansy)

2007-10-18T11:11:00.000Z

Deke McClelland continues his Photoshop On-on-one series with the new Adobe Photoshop CS3 one-on-one. The book covers with training examples the features in Adobe Photoshop CS3.
The book takes you starting from opening and organizing files in Photoshop as the default start for any one starts work in Photoshop. And covers in the second and third lessons the color features such as highlighting, midtones, shadows and correcting color balance in Photoshop.

Read more..

Graphic Mania

2007-10-07T17:33:00.000Z

We are happy to announce our new graphic, web and animation site www.graphicmania.net . The site is frequently updated with graphic, web and animation resources such as tutorials, reviews, articles, and downloads for graphic tools such as Adobe Flash and Photoshop.

Thanks alot!!

www.graphicmania.net

The New interface for GraphicMania

2007-10-02T19:03:00.000Z

I updated my article and tutorials site Graphic Mania with a new interface, I think it is more clear and easy to use than the old one. I also add frequently updates that I thin it would be useful for web designers and graphic designers, The updates include downloads, Flash content, Software and useful links in addition to the updated graphic news.

Please visit my new site and let me know your comments at : rafiqelmansy (at)yahoo (dot) com:

New Flash stock content

2007-09-25T18:00:00.000Z

New updated Flash animation stock content to graphicmania.net, the new content set are cartoon animation Flash from my portfolio at istockphoto.com, here is the URL of the new content:

http://www.graphicmania.net/?page_id=3

A new post about Active Content on IE7

2007-09-21T19:08:00.000Z

I added a breif about how to remove the "click to activate" rectangle in IE7 related to Active Content. visit my tutorial site for more info at:
http://www.graphicmania.net/

Graphic Mania

2007-09-19T19:37:00.000Z

Yes, it is the time!! I have just created my new website for articles, reviews, news and resources about grpahic, design, animation, Flash Photoshop and other Adobe Products. Here is my new site URL:
www.graphicmania.net

I would be glade if you visit it and tell me your comments her or at my email:
rafiqelmansy (at) yahoo (dot) com

Reviewing Photoshop CS2 Killer Tips

2006-11-28T14:35:00.000Z

Product Details:
Writers: Scott Kelby, Felix Nelson
Book Name: Photoshop CS2 Killer Tips
Publisher: New Rider

As a tips and tricks book, The Photoshop CS2 Killer tips for Scott Kelby and Felix Nelson is not a tutorial book, it helps you explore the hidden tricks in Photoshop CS2 to help you accomplishing tasks faster and easily.

The book starts with some useful tips and trick for Adobe Bridge that come with Adobe Photoshop. The Adobe Bridge tips includes tips that help you work faster such as batch processing your files, renaming, rating to easily reach your search results.

The next chapters of the book describe Photoshop tips and tricks with a friendly light language that suite the nature of the topics discussed in the book.

Each chapter concerns with a group of tips and tricks. For example, chapter 6 (Speedy Gonzalez) concerns with the layers tips and trick, and chapter 7 (Burn Rubber) shows some cool text tips.

I see this book turns the life of the Photoshop users to a fun; they can now achieve with single mouse click what they used to do with a lot of steps and time. I can not recommend this book for beginner as they may find it hard to deal with shortcuts of things they still need to learn about, but I find it a very good book for intermediate and professional Photoshop users.

Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy

Adobe Acrobat 3D review

2006-11-12T14:38:00.000Z

It has been a problem to send or present 3D works to the client. As you need to make sure that your client has the viewer or finds the way to open it. Now with the new Acrobat family member, Adobe Acrobat 3D, you can make sure that your client do not need to install any 3D VRML viewers or other software to review the 3D works. All you need is to have Adobe Acrobat reader installed to your client machine.

I think Adobe Acrobat 3D is a great tool for presenting products made with 3D or CAD programs such as mechanical equipments; also it is useful for educational purposes for viewing education material in 3D space.

Adobe Acrobat 3D lets you easily capture your 3D models and add it to your PDF files, and it gives you comprehensive set of tools that enable your client from controlling the view of your 3D object like any other 3D viewers such as controlling the view of your object, the lighting options, the render mode, the background color, as well as the ability to view a cross section of your model, viewing its dimensions and view the model tree, where you can view each of the model parts.

Figure1. 3D object embedded to PDF file

Figure2. The 3D view option tool bar

Adobe Acrobat 3d gives you the capabilities to reduce your 3D file to easily share with clients partners using the Reduce File Size from the File menu. In addition to that, Adobe Acrobat 3D enable you and your clients to add comments and notes to the PDF files using a the Comment menu, which include number of feature to manage comments like adding notes, drawing markups, replying comments, importing comment, exporting comment and sending for reviewing feature.

Figure3. The comments feature in Adobe Acrobat 3D

In addition to the 3D feature, Adobe Acrobat 3D include the feature of Adobe Acrobat Professional such as securing and digital signing.
Adobe Acrobat 3D enable you to send your PDFs either through email or upload for browser based review.

Also, Adobe Acrobat 3D comes with another Adobe product, it is Adobe Designer, which allow you to create forms to be sent by email for client to fill and the results are sent back to your email address.

The Adobe Acrobat 3D is a new product from Adobe and I think it is a must-have product for all professionals who work in the 3D and CAD products for easing the delivery and the review process for their products. However, I think 995$ for getting a new version and 545$ for upgrade is little expensive.
Finally, Adobe site includes all the information you need to know to get start with this product at the following link:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat3d/

Building istockphoto.com portfolio

2006-10-17T06:27:00.000Z

After months from adding content, I found that my portfolio is growing bigger and bigger. I got rates, reviews and of course I got paid for each download of my files.
I can imagine after a year of adding content everyday, how much big is my portfolio will be. Especially when the site allows to upload different type of work such as images, Flash, designs and recently video content.

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&userID=261679

Adobe Premier Pro 2.0 review

2006-09-28T07:44:00.000Z

Adobe Premier is one of the essential tools for any video editor to accomplish video editing and capturing various video formats, edit it and output it in different media such as tapes, TV, DVD or web.
The new version of Adobe Premier Pro 2.0 comes up with new cool features that enhance your work and give you the ability to have a client review version of you work in many methods such as PDF, Email, client review DVD version.
As part of the Adobe Production Studio package, Adobe Premier Pro 2.0 is highly integrated with other Adobe Video products such as Adobe Encore, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Audition and especially Adobe After Effects, which enables you to drag and drop, copy and paste your work between the two products.

The new Premier Pro gives you the capabilities to output your work for web and use in your Flash projects by the ability to export your video work as FLV video format, which is gives you a small video size suitable for using on the web in a variety of methods such as embedding to Flash, progressive download or streaming over the net to your client.

When you buy Adobe Premier Pro 2.0, you will get 17 hours of free training DVD to introduce you to the Adobe Production Studio package software and how to use it.

The new customizable workspace in Adobe Premier Pro 2.0 helps you to benefit from the space for your work and gives you the ability to dock and group panels as well as resizing panels and separating any panel form its group.

Figure1. The new customizable workspace in Adobe Premier Pro 2.0

Another great feature in Adobe Premier Pro 2.0 is the Integrated Titling tool, which allows you to create text, graphics and text effects for your project wither from scratch or from a template.

With this new feature you do not have to create your text in other program such as Photoshop, just open the new Titling tool and create your text and apply the text effect desired on it.

Figure2. Integrated titling tool

If you like to send your edited video to your client to review and comment, the new Clip Notes feature helps you creating PDF files of your work to send to your client and get feedback from their comments.

Figure3. The Clip Notes Export panel

And authoring DVD becomes very simple using the DVD Layout menu which allows you to choose a sequence in the timeline, select you DVD layout from template and simply create your DVD content.

Figure4. DVD Layout panel

In Addition to the above, Adobe Premier Pro contains other new features such as a new Lighting effects filter, Subclip creation, scrolling timeline panel, Feets + frames timecode native HDV editing support, uncompressed HD support, GPU-accelerated render, Multicam editing to edit shoots from multiple-camera and view simultaneously in the quad-view monitor.

And as we said above, Adobe provides a high integration between Adobe Production Studio package and easy access to our resources using Adobe Bridge, which allows you to reach manage multiple files in the same time.

The new Adobe Premier Pro costs 849$ and if you have an old version of the software, I see the new features really worth to upgrade for 199$. You can find more info about Adobe Premier Pro 2.0 at Adobe site: http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/

Reviewing Inside Outside Design (Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy)

2006-09-05T12:02:00.000Z

Product Details:
Writer: Malcolm Grear
Book Name: Inside Outside From the Basics to the Practice of Design
Publisher: New Riders Press
ISBN: 0-321-44067-6
URL: http://www.peachpit.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0321440676&rl=1

Actually, I do not find many books like Malcolm book Inside Outside Design, although I think it is very important for computer designer to know how to merge their academic design and visual studies in their work.Malcolm Grear, the writer of this book, has played a vital role in the industry of design by working as a designer and educator for about 48 years. You can find this obvious from the first paper sin the book.The Inside Outside book provides you a practical way to learn how to use the design and visual concept in the design career. It gives you the basic background that helps your mind generate new ideas based on the theories of design and visual communication, such as working with letters and typography.The book includes a lot of images that help delivering the concept described.You can take the easy way in your designs by following the current styles of designs and animations in your work, but this will not give your ideas the excellence. Understanding the ideas in this book will help you create original creative designs.
Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy

Real World Adobe Illustrator CS2 (Reviewed by: Rafiq ELmansy)

2006-09-04T06:54:00.000Z

Product Details:
Writer: Mordy Golding
Book Name: Real World Adobe Illustrator CS2
Publisher: Peachpit Press
ISBN: 0321337026
URL: http://www.peachpit.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0321337026&rl=1

The Real World Adobe Illustrator CS2 is your perfect guide to Illustrator CS2. It gives you a full coverage of this vector graphic program, supported with illustrations and demonstration figures.
With the easy way the book uses, you will a professional in Illustrator. This book gives you in 12 chapters all you need to work perfectly with Illustrator. The book starts with introducing the program working environment in the first chapter, and goes deeper step by step in later chapters to let you explore and understand the Vector graphic and Illustrator objects and tools.
Also, it covers some new features in the new Illustrator CS2 such as Live Trace, Live Paint …etc.
By the end of the book, you will learn how to get your work out of Illustrator by discussing saving and exporting files form it.

Although this book is for intermediate and advanced level, I recommend this book for beginner too. And Take advantage of its simple easy way to deliver the info.

Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy

Reviewing Building Websites with Joomla (Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy)

2006-08-16T07:36:00.000Z

Joomla is an open-source CMS that enable you to build PHP websites. Hagen Graf's book, Building Websites with Joomla, provides you a complete reference for Joomla CMS features and how to use these features in building dynamic websites and e-commerce web applications.
The book starts with defining the terms and concepts of Joomla to easily understand the tutorial in the book. However, the next chapters start to introduce you to Joomla beginning with the installation in chapter 2 and introducing the Joomla interface features.
The following 4th and 5th chapters show you how to customize Joomla site, menus and managing content.
Chapter 6 includes tutorial about how to install component and modules such as Banners, Contacts, Feeds, Polls and Weblinks.
While the 7th chapter concerns with Forums, Comments and Calendars, the 8th chapter talks about Image Gallery and how to Manage Documents in your site. And chapter 9 concerns with E-commerce.
After describing the content of Joomla, chapter 10 and 11 help you to create your own templates and program extensions.
The writer finishes the book with an online reference of the Mambo and Joomla resources.

Product Details:Writer: Hagen Graf
Book Name: Building Websites with Joomla
Publisher: Packt publishing
ISBN: 1904811949
URL: http://www.packtpub.com/joomla/book

Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy

Reviewing Flash 8 Projects for learning Animation and Interactivity (Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy)

2006-08-13T07:25:00.000Z

The Flash 8 projects for learning Animation and Interactivity book is a good resource for beginner to learn animation. It takes you step by step using practice examples to teach you basic animation techniques. The title of the book show two issues the first one is learning animation and I think the writer covered this part very well for beginners. The second issue is Learning Interactivity, which is covered along with the animation. The chapter that causes confusion for me is the 13th chapter. As it talks about e-learning in Flash, which is a very big issue that can not covered in one chapter, even for beginners. I think this part needs another book to cover deeply and give the beginner a strong beginning step in the field of e-learning.
Regardless the 13th chapter I see the book focused well and this helps the beginners to grasp the idea of the animation in Flash.

Product Details:Writer: Rich Shupe & Robert Hoekman, Jr.
Book Name: Flash 8 Projects for learning Animation and Interactivity
Publisher: O'Reilly
ISBN: 0-596-10223-2
URL: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/flashprojects/

Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy

DV Filmmaking from start to finish review (Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy)

2006-08-13T06:22:00.000Z

DV Filmmaking for Ian David Aronson gives you in 18 chapter a coverage for the production, post-production and distribution process of the digital film making.The book starts with basic digital Cinematography principles. It covers he process stages such as composing shoots, lighting, shooting, working with cameras, audio, still images and titles.This book doesn’t give you a specific software tutorial, but if you are working learning with video production and video editing program, you should get a background about the whole film making process. However, this book gives you a strong background in this industry. I find this book useful for animators, multimedia designers and creative directors. The two appendixes in the end of the book gives you a tips about getting your work in various media and selling your products. Product Details:Writer: Ian David Aronson

Book Name: DV Filmmaking from start to finish
Publisher: O'Reilly
ISBN: 0-596-00848-1
URL: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/dvfilmmaking/

Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy

Reviewing Adobe Illustrator CS2 (By Rafiq Elmansy)

2006-08-10T05:39:00.000Z

With the high integration between Adobe products such as Flash, After Effects, Photoshop and the new Illustrator CS2, I think Designers and animators should use or move to Adobe Illustrator CS2 in the vector image creation process.

The Adobe Illustrator CS2 is a great tool to create vector graphics in a very easy and simple interface. The new version of Illustrator extended the program capabilities with keeping on the simplicity.

Most of the new features in Illustrator CS2 share the same concept; it speeds up your work and makes it simpler.

In this review, I would like to present an overview over some new features that I consider a strong reason to buy or upgrade to Illustrator CS2:

· Live Trace:

The live Trace button in Illustrator CS2 turns you bitmaps images into vector in a button bush with a wide variety of options. You can choose from presets tracing options such as 6 colors, 16 colors, Photo law or high fidelity, grayscale, hand draw sketch and much more. Also, you can optimize the tracing option you desire using the tracing options dialog box.

Figure 01. The Live Tracing dialog box

· Live Paint

The new Live Paint tool really enhances the painting process as it makes it easier and gives you more capabilities such as creating new shapes from overlapped objects and paths that is detected by the Live paint Bracket tool. This feature allows you to create new colored areas and create complex objects from simple one.

Actually, the Live paint tool turns you overlapped objects into filling areas, which can be filled with colors and selected by the Live paint Selection tool.

· Control palette

As we mentioned in the beginning of this review, Adobe Illustrator gives you features to speed your work. And one of these features is the new Control palette. This new palette makes reaching each tool option much faster and easier. It is located in the top of the Illustrator working space and can be moved around according to your needs.

· Custom workspaces

The new Illustrator CS2 enables you to customize your workspace to fit your needs, and save it as a new Workspace. Also, you can manage your workspaces through the Workspace pop-up menu.

· Adobe Photoshop layer comp support

The new version of Adobe illustrator support the Layer comp created in Photoshop, and lets you select from the Layer comps you create in Photoshop.

Figure 02. Photoshop files import option window in Illustrator CS2

· Adobe Bridge

Adobe Bridge helps you easy locate and manage your Illustrator assets and connect to Adobe Stock Photos for more resource. What is great in Adobe Bridge that it increases the integration between Adobe products and speed your work by easily locate your file and get online assets.

· Mobile Content

Adobe illustrator CS2 extends your capabilities to get artwork out to the tiny screen of the big world of mobility by supporting SVG and tiny SVG format. Adobe illustrator supports saving your work in SVG and tiny SVG format which is support in many handheld and mobile devices. By this new feature, you can extend the market of your work as easy as mouse click.

In addition to the above feature, the new version of Adobe illustrator includes other features such as the ability to assign a spot color to gray scale images, expanded stroke option and PDF/X support.

In my opinion, the extended capabilities in the new version of Adobe Illustrator CS2 really worth to pay 499$ for it. Also, you can upgrade your Illustrator version to CS2 for 169$

And to know more information about Adobe illustrator CS2, you can visit The product page on Adobe site:

http://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator/

10 years of Flash

2006-08-09T05:26:00.000Z

Adobe is celebrating the Flash 10th birthday, and has launched a microsite for this event. Find more about Adobe celebration on:
http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/dialogbox/flash_anniversary/

It is really great to select me as one of the ten prespective designers that Adobe enterviewed in this occation, find my enterview on the following link:
http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/dialogbox/flash_anniversary/index_07.html

Reviewing After Effects 7 Visual Quickpro Guide (Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy)

2006-07-12T12:54:00.000Z

Product Details:
Book Name: After Effects 7 Visual Quickpro Guide
Writer: Antony Bolante
Publisher: Peachpit publishing
ISBN: 0321383540

Are you new with After Effects? Adobe After Effects 7 Visual Quickpro Guide for Antony Bolante really gives you fast steps toward learning more about this product. This book gives you a strong base to start a leading career using After Effects.
Antony Bolante in his book considered that the reader is beginner in After Effects. So, he describes each tiny part in an easy to understand way.

The first chapters in the book describe this great program, anatomy and tools. And shows you with examples how to use these tools.
For example, chapter 12 shows all about creating text and text animation. It starts with setting the workspace for text and goes through creating text, editing, formatting, setting text options and describes in details how to get the most out of text animation, starting with making the text follow a path, using text animation presets and creating animator groups.
The last chapter teaches you how to get your work out to the world by using different rendering techniques in After Effects.

I think this book is the best resource for beginner After Effect designers and animators, as it really gives you a big push toward the proficiency of Adobe after Effects.

Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy

PHP and MYSQL for dynamic web sites (Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy)

2006-07-02T06:43:00.000Z

Product Details:
Writer: Larry Ullman
Book Name: PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide
Publisher: Peachpit press
ISBN: 0321186486
http://www.peachpit.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0321336577&rl=1

PHP and MYSQL for dynamic websites for Larry Ullman is another member of Visual Quick Pro Guide series that gives you a fast efficient way to learn. The book covers PHP 5 and MYSQL 4.1 for beginners, intermediate and advanced users.
The introduction of the book gives you a fast definition for some important terminology about dynamic websites, what is PHP, why use PHP, how it works and what is MYSQL.
The first chapter is an introduction to PHP language, the basic Syntax, sending data to browser, writing comments, variables, strings, numbers, constants and quotation marks.
The second chapter covers the programming with PHP such as creating forms and validating forms data. The next chapter covers dynamic websites.
Chapter 4 and 5 covers SQL and MYSQL. And using PHP with MYSQL is covered in chapter 7.
The following chapters covers different related issues such as web application developing, cookies, sessions, security, CMS example and ecommerce example.
The book is good start for beginner to learn web developing with PHP and SQL.

Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy

Exploring the Flash Professional 9 ActionScript 3.0 Preview

2006-06-28T08:02:00.000Z

Jen deHaan is the first to post a preview article about Flash Professional ActionScript 3.0. In her article, Jen preview the new features in Flash Professional AS 3.0 with new ActionScript Virtual machine (AVM) as well as the new scripts in AS 3.0.
read the full article and more in Adobe Developer Center update:http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/
Also, there are new announcements on the Adobe pressroom:http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/

Adding 3D to Flash projects using After Effects

2006-06-20T07:22:00.000Z

A new artilce has posted for me at adobe site, it talks about how to use After Effects 3D layer feature to enhance you Flash animation with 3D and animating your Flash or Illustrator objects in the 3D space.
Read the full article at Adobe developer center:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/3d_in_flash.html

What Gates's Departure Means for Microsoft

2006-06-18T05:55:00.000Z

PCworld.com has published an analysis for Bill Gates`s departure affect on Microsoft, read the whole analysis at the following link:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,126127,00.asp

Google news reader

2006-05-21T05:35:00.000Z

With the Google News Reader you can add the site you like to visit regularly, and keep yourself updated with its news and updated content. The Google News Reader has a simple interface and takes no time to customize. Visit the Google News Reader at the following link:
http://www.google.com/reader/view/

Reviewing Flash Professional 8 Beyond The Basics (Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy)

2006-05-16T07:03:00.000Z

The Flash Professional 8 Beyond The Basics for Shane Rebenchied is a practice book that includes some useful tutorial for both Flash designers and developers. About 50 step-by-step tutorials cover many needed techniques to create a professional Flash application. Such as, formatting dynamically loaded text using HTML, CSS and nested images, building preloader with the MovieClipLoader class, adding a progressively downloading multi-track MP3 player and using component to create a feed back form.

For the first time I looked at the book index, I felt like the tutorials are not very well organized, but with another deep look, I realized that the tutorials are pinpoint the problems you may face when creating a Flash application in a professional way.

The book also includes a CD-ROM with exercises and training videos. To know more about this book you can visit http://www.peachpit.com/title/0321293878

Product Details:
Reviewing Flash Professional 8 Beyond The Basics
Publisher: Peachpit
ISBN: 0-321-29387-8

Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy

Photoshop CS2 RAW from Oreilly

2006-05-15T10:44:00.000Z

In March, Oreilly has published Photoshop CS2 RAW book, which concern with the RAW extension. This extension gives you more control on the images created from your digital camera as it does not affected by the camera process and deliver you that data captured in an uncompressed format. Read more about this new book at the following link:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/photoshopraw/

Photoshop TV

2006-05-15T08:15:00.000Z

Photoshop TV is a Photoshop Podcast produced by the NAPP. the www.photoshoptv.com includes nice updated Podcasts for Adobe Photoshop tips and tricks. you can subscribe through iTunes by adding the following URL to Subscribe Podcast list (Advanced > Subscribe Podcast ):

http://feeds.feedburner.com/photoshoptv/

Network for professionals

2006-05-14T14:01:00.000Z

I was just getting recovered from my latest surgery when my friend Greg Hamer invited me to join Linkedin.com network. I think it is a great network to connect professionals, friends and old colleges. It keeps you updated with your contacts info changes and lets search for jobs within this network and link you with other companies. Visit http://www.linkedin.com/ and join this great community. you can add me to your contact too (Rafiq Elmansy, email rafiqelmansy (at) yahoo (dot) com).

New Cookbook for Flash 8

2006-05-14T07:38:00.000Z

Oreilly has published a new Cookbook for Flash 8. As the rest of the series, Flash 8 Cookbook is a practice book for both developers and designers. read the following link for more info about this book:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/flash8ckbk/

Submit your work for the 2006 Adobe Customer Reel

2006-05-12T14:38:00.000Z

You're invited!

Submit your work for the 2006 Adobe Customer Reel by June 30. http://www.adobe.com/motion/customerreel.html

Adobe invites you to submit your work for possible inclusion in the 2006 Adobe Digital Video and Audio Customer Reel! This is a chance to showcase the work you produce using Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Encore DVD, Adobe Audition, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and other Adobe products! We want to see your work and show it to others in the industry so they can see how creative our users are—and see the possibilities of Adobe's Digital Video and Audio products.

Adobe plans to introduce the reel at SIGGRAPH in Boston this August. Over the next year Adobe will also present the reel at tradeshows, seminars and industry events worldwide. This reel also proudly plays in the lobby of Adobe's headquarters—reminding all that some of the coolest products at Adobe are the ones that make images move.

If you are able to grant us the additional right to distribute your materials as part of the Reel for the purpose of promoting Adobe products and services, your work may reach an even wider audience! To be included in versions of the Reel that are played on the Adobe web site and shared with customers and partners, be sure to check the option on the last page of the Non-Exclusive License Agreement.

NTSC Beta SP is our preferred format, but we can also accept Digibeta, miniDV, miniDV (DV, HDV, or HD), and uncompressed movie files (QuickTime and AVI) on data DVDs. We cannot accept PAL, and would prefer to use authored DVDs only if no other option is available, as compression means the finished quality will be less than ideal. This year, we plan to produce the reel in 16:9 format as well as 4:3, so if you have both options available, please send them both to us.

Please tell us which Adobe products you used and a little about the project(s) you're submitting by filling out the contact sheet. If your work has audio, please make sure that you have the rights for Adobe to use the audio or indicate that we need to use copyright free music.

To submit your work:

1) Print and fill out t he Contact Infosheet : http://www.adobe.com/motion/pdfs/2006_dvreel_contactinfo.pdf.

2) Print and complete 2 copies of the Non-Exclusive License : http://www.adobe.com/motion/pdfs/2006_dvreel_license_agreement.pdf

3) Send your reel, both copies of the Non-Exclusive License (one copy will be sent back to you), and the Contact Info sheet to:

Attn: Adobe Customer Reel

Meredith Yeary

Adobe Systems, Inc.

801 North 34^th St.

Seattle , WA 98103

We can't guarantee that your work will be included but we make every effort to include as broad a range of work as possible. Submissions in past years have come from Istanbul, New York, Tokyo, LA, Paris, Poland and virtually everywhere in between, and have represented everything from experimental films and self-promotions to commercials, broadcast graphics, and film compositing projects. We'd love to see what you've been working on, so please send your reel to us!

If you have any questions, please email us at customerreel@adobe.com .

Remember, the submission deadline is June 30. Thanks again for your support!

Sincerely,

The Adobe Digital Video and Audio Product Teams

Cartoonsmart.com video about IE changes

2006-05-11T06:51:00.000Z

Cartoonsmart.com added a new video tutorial with samples for how to Flash using Javascript after the IE changes, visit the following link for details and free downloads:
http://www.cartoonsmart.com/change_code.html

Adobe Photoshop CS2 review

2006-05-09T11:50:00.000Z

I remember when I first started to learn Adobe Photoshop, 7 years ago. I started with Photoshop 4; life was not so much easy as it is today. We had to go through a lot of steps to do effects we can do now with fewer steps and less time. Adobe Photoshop goes through a lot of enhancements and improvements since then.

Workflow improvements:

The new version of Adobe Photoshop is part of the new Adobe Creative Suite 2, which provides more workflow with the integration between Adobe applications using Adobe Bridge (figure 1). The new version is more users friendly, saves much time and gives you the ability to create professional outputs in fewer steps with its new features.

In addition to the Adobe Bridge, The new Adobe creative suite includes improvements in the color management by providing a simplified printing interface for color management. As well as Version Cue 2.0, which enable you to manage files either by one user or in workgroup.

Figure 1. Adobe Bridge browser

Photo editing improvements:

Photoshop CS2 includes many new features to improve the photo editing process such as The Camera Raw plug-in, which enable you to apply your setting to a batch of images, The High Dynamic Range, Optical lens correction, noise reduction, Smart Sharpen filter and Spot Healing tool.

With the new Photoshop, you do not have to worry about the red eye problem any more because it removes this problem with the new red eye correction feature. Also, The Blur effects are enhanced with new Blur filters like Box Blur, Shape Blur and Surface Blur.

Design enhancements:

The new Adobe Photoshop CS2 includes great improvements for designers. For example, you do not have to create a perspective to your image manually or relay on third party plug-in to create the perspective effect you need, the new Vanishing Point do it for you.

Also, you do not need to worry about image distortion when you transform your image; the new Smart Object feature creates multiple instances of your image or vector, and updates them all at once (figure 2). As well as the ability to control multiple layers.

In addition to the above design features, which I think it is the most useful for designers, there are some other new features like image wrapping, the ability to create animation, Japanese type features, smart guides and integrated online service.

Figure 2. Free transforming Smart Object

Also, Adobe Photoshop CS2 includes other new features such as customizable menus, batch image processing, new PDF engine, Scripting and action event manager, UI font size customization, Update Manager, Variables as in Image ready, Video preview, WYSIWYG Font menu.

Some old features have also changed such as layer grouping, merging layers, loading selections, clipping mask visibility, file browsing and placing files as smart objects.

As we see from the above brief of the new features in Adobe Photoshop CS2, it provides photographers and designers with some great tools to enhance their work. I think this feature really worth the upgrade, which costs 169$. The new version of Adobe Photoshop CS2 costs 649$.

And to know more about this great product, visit Adobe site at the following link:

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/

Google page creator

2006-04-20T06:50:00.000Z

Google comes up with a new service that enable you to creat simple web site in a less than a minute as if you are creating a word document. Visit Google page creator section and enjoy:

http://pages.google.com

Rafiq Elmansy
Senior graphic designer,
Macromedia certified professional
www.beedesignstudio.com
www.macromedia-review.blogspot.com

Orisinal games

2006-04-19T10:46:00.000Z

Since 4 years, a friend told me about this great site Orisinal.com for Ferry Halim. Since then, I run to it when I feel bored or got a work stress and need some freshing. Actually, the games in this site is unique in simplicity, design and colors. if you need to have some rest, just forget every thing around you (except your work manager!!) and play a game or two. Looking to the games colors is enough to refresh your mind. The site link is:

http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/

Rafiq R. Elmansy
Multimedia Graphic Designer
Macromedia Certified Proffessional

www.beedesignstudio.com
www.macromedia-review.blogspot.com
www.mmug-egypt.mxdj.com

My New Site

2006-04-04T10:35:00.000Z

Finally, I have just updated my site(www.beedesignstudio.com), hope very one visit and tell me your opinion, for comments and inquiries, please email me at the following email:

rafiqelmansy(at)yahoo(dot)com

Rafiq R. Elmansy
Multimedia Graphic Design, Macromedia Certified Professional
Adobe User Group Manager
www.beedesignstudio.com

Adobe After Effects 6.5 Magic Review (Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy)

2006-03-26T06:54:00.000Z

The Adobe After Effects 6.5 Magic for James Rankin and Anna Ullrich is a practice book. You will learn by example 100 of the After Effects techniques through 22 chapters. Each chapter includes project that helps you creating cinematic and commercials animation effects.
Creating each project is described step by step easily and clearly, by the end of each project, you will find a Now Try This section that inspire you with new ideas to apply what you have learnt in each chapter.
The After Effects Magic projects are varies from text, lighting and corporate logo animation techniques. I wished the book includes more projects and order them according to its level. But generally, the book is good choice as a practice resource that lets you easily digest many of the After Effects features.

Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy

Product Details:
Book Name: Adobe After Effects Magic
Writer: James Rankin, Anna Ullrich
Publisher: New Riders Press
ISBN: 0321267230

Reviewing Adobe After Effects Studio Techniques (Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy)

2006-02-27T06:25:00.000Z

The Adobe After Effects Studio techniques book takes you in a tour to explore what is inside this magnificent program and how to use its capabilities in creating video effects.

The book focused on the video production techniques. The first section introduces the program and its working foundations. While the second section concerns with the effects composting, the third section talks about how to work with light, air, water, smoke, clouds and fire effects.

The book level is for intermediate/ advanced. So, you need to have a background about the After Effects to enjoy reading this book.

Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy

Product Details:
Adobe After Effects Studio Techniques
Publisher: Adobe Press
ISBN: 0321316207

Achieving Amazing Easing Effects in Flash article

2006-02-14T14:25:00.000Z

Among the great features in the new Flash Professional 8, I have concentrated on a wonderful feature for animation and creating animation effect. Which is the new custom easing effect feature. This feature enables Flash animator and designers to create amazing tweening effect and mimic natural animation effects. To read more about this great feature, visit Macromedia site at the following link:
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/flash/articles/custom_easing.html

Reviewing Macromedia Flash 8 Training from the Source (Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy)

2006-01-30T09:14:00.000Z

Macromedia Flash professional 8 training from the Source is a member of the training from the source series that lets you learn by example. The book is good for beginners that need to know about Flash. In the beginning, Tom Green and Jordan L. Chilcott introduce Flash interface and walk through the program features with some useful example for better understanding for the program and its features.
For sure, it is not useful if you want to go deeper and more advanced in the program, but it is still a very good start. This book is also a very useful resource for the Flash certification exam beside the study guide.

Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy

Product Details:
Macromedia Flash 8 Training from the Source
Publisher: Macromedia Press
ISBN: 0321336291

Reviewing Color Management (Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy)

2006-01-30T09:13:00.000Z

Adobe Production studio

2006-01-24T09:49:00.000Z

The adobe Production Studio is a new Creative suite from Adobe that gether the video editing software such as premier, After Effects and Encoder DVD in addition to Adobe photoshop CS2 and Illustrator CS2.
Visit the following link for more info:
http://www.adobe.com/products/productionstudio/main.html

Adobe Acrobat 3D

2006-01-24T09:24:00.000Z

Adobe has announced a new Adobe acrobat product named Adobe Acrobat 3D that allows you embed 3D objects from 3D applications like AutoCAD to your PDF file.
This technology will enhance the Adobe acrobat with new capabilities to view 3D object.
To know more about this technology, you can visit the following link:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat3d/overview.html

Reviewing Digital Photography Hacks (Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy)

2006-01-14T10:24:00.000Z

Digital Photography Hacks is a part of O'reilly's hacks series, which provide tricks and solutions for different fields. This book gives you tips and tricks when dealing with your digital camera.

I read this book after reading Digital Photography Guide for the same writer, Direck. So, I found myself comparing between the two books and found the Digital Photography Hacks is an extension for the Digital Photography Guide. These tips and tricks complete your knowledge with some useful methods to create professional photos using tools and things around you.

If you know your camera well, you will find this book very useful and open your mind for new tricks to produce professional photos. However, if you were a beginner in digital photography I would prefer to start with Direck's Digital Photography Guide.

Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy

Product Details:
Digital Photography Hacks
Publisher: O'reilly
ISBN: 0596006667

Adobe message to Macromedia community

2005-12-15T07:22:00.000Z

Sara Spalding's message to Macromedia community supports the expectation of more support from Adobe to the huge community that Macromedia created and helped to create. This open community helped a lot of people around the world to know learn and exchange ideas and information related to Macromedia products.

I think the decision of containing the community support is wise one and in the same side of Adobe further strategy.

Below is the letter sent by Sara Spalding, Director of Developer Relations at Adobe:

Dear Macromedia Community Members:

By now you most likely know that Adobe has finalized its acquisition of Macromedia, combining the leading-edge technologies of two pioneering software companies. We'd like to take this opportunity to let you know what the acquisition means to you as a valued member of our community and what you can expect from Adobe in the days ahead.

With the acquisition of Macromedia, Adobe is dramatically advancing its ability to deliver a platform that provides you with powerful solutions for engaging people with digital information. We are now better positioned than ever to assist you in meeting and exceeding your business requirements and goals.

Moving forward, we will bring together some of the industry's strongest brands and most ubiquitous technologies, including Acrobat, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, PDF, ColdFusion and Flash. Customers who have relied on Adobe and Macromedia solutions will benefit from a consistent platform and common user interface, as well as the outstanding care they've come to expect from both companies.

At a high level, by bringing our technologies together, we will provide the community with the software solutions you need to meet the increasing demands of today's competitive environment. Now more than ever, we are positioned to help you securely extend the reach of your information, business processes and services to engage and interact with customers and constituents online, via mobile devices – by whatever medium you choose.

As you may know many of Macromedia's leaders are now in leadership roles at Adobe. Kevin Lynch is now Adobe's Senior Vice President and Chief Software Architect, Platform Business Unit. Kevin's responsibilities include the Flash Player, Acrobat Reader, and Developer Relations. David Mendels is now Adobe's Senior Vice President of Enterprise and Developer Solutions, and is responsible for products like Flex, ColdFusion and LiveCycle. Tom Hale is now Adobe's Senior Vice President of the Knowledge Worker Solutions Business Unit, which includes Breeze and Acrobat. And lastly, Stephen Elop, Macromedia's former President and CEO, is the President of Adobe's worldwide field organization.

Our efforts with user groups around the world, developer events and conferences, and throughout the community will continue as they always have, and we're excited about how we can enhance and expand our relationships with our development community.

We look forward to sharing more information with the community in the coming weeks. For more information about the merger, please visit www.adobe.com. If you have questions, comments, or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me directly, or any of your contacts on the developer relations team.

On behalf of all of Adobe, and the Developer Relations team in particular, I want to thank you for your continued commitment to our community, and I look forward to new opportunities to work together.

With best regards,

Sara Spalding, Director, Developer Relations

sspaldin at adobe dot com

Reviewing Macromedia Flash 8 Tutorial Guide (Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy)

2005-12-11T12:29:00.000Z

The macromedia Flash 8 tutorial guide for Jay Armstrong and Jen deHaan is the official macromedia tutorial guide for Flash 8. This book is a good book for beginners to Flash 8 as it gives simple organized training examples that help understanding the program features.

The book is divided into tasks starting from creating Flash-working file to using dynamic content in the Flash project.

The best advantage in this book is the simplicity in delivering information, as well as the organizing and the developing of the examples.

Product Details:

Macromedia Flash 8: A Tutorial Guide

Publisher: Macromedia Press

ISBN: 0321394143

Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy

Reviewing Digital Photography Pocket Guide (Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy)

2005-12-11T11:03:00.000Z

Do you remember when you first hold your new digital camera? Have you got this strong desire to take a professional shots for every thing around you and the people around you?

Then, you hold your camera searching for the power button!! And face the fact that you need to know your camera to be able to get your professional shots. However, many people do not know much about their digital camera and its capabilities, losing chances of great shots.

The Digital Photography Pocket Guide, O'reilly's best selling book, leads you to know your camera starting from its components, features and software features to how to take good shots with your camera.

The first chapter introduces to you the digital camera and its features. The second chapter tells you alphabetically what every button and menu do starting from Aperture Value to Zooming.

The last chapter includes some useful tips and tricks to consider when taking your shots. And in the end of the book, Derrick Story included important indexes about your digital camera

Actually, the secret of the good shots is to consider your camera the extension of you hand that translate your eyes vision and ideas to camera shots. And the first step to achieve this is to know your camera.

This guide is a very useful for both beginners who want to get a new camera or the user that already have a digital camera but do not know much about it.

Product Details:

Digital Photography Pocket Guide

Publisher: O'reilly

ISBN: 0-596-10015-9

Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy

Reviewing Animation and Effects with Macromedia Flash MX 2004 (Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy)

2005-10-20T07:56:00.000Z

In her book, Animation and Effects with Macromedia Flash MX 2004, Jen DeHaan covered the animation effects techniques in Flash MX 2004.

Jen started her book with a fast introduction to Flash MX 2004, and then she moved on to the animation techniques in Flash, motion tweening, shape tweening and frame by frame animation.

Also, she did not miss to mention the animation using action script. And in the end of the book, she included useful appendixes about publishing SWF, time line effects and keyboard shortcuts.

However, this book is a good reference for intermediate designers and developers that want to get a solid background on the animation in Flash MX 2004.

Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy

Product Details:

Book title: Animation and Effects with Macromedia Flash MX 2004

Author: Jen DeHaan

Publisher: Macromedia Press

ISBN: 032130344X

Reviewing Adobe Photoshop CS2 Class Room in a Book (Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy)

2005-10-16T10:53:00.001Z

Are you a digital photographer, graphic designer or a professional graphic design that eager to be an Adobe Certified Expert? So, you have to read this book. Adobe Photoshop CS2 Class Room in a Book is the official training book for Adobe Systems and the official training source for the Adobe Certified Expert exam.

This book provides a how-to training guide for Adobe Photoshop CS2, and covers all the features in this magnificent program starting with the working area and program anatomy, going through the photo editing features and other program features.

Also, it covers the new features in Adobe Photoshop CS2 like smart object, vanishing point and camera RAW technique that provides enhanced capabilities for image editing for digital photographers.

Adobe Photoshop Class Room in a Book is the best practice book for all who work with Adobe Photoshop CS2, whether digital photographers or graphic designs.

Product Details:
Adobe Photoshop CS2 Class Room in a Book
Publisher: Adobe Press
ISBN: 0321321847

Reviewing Adobe Creative Suite 2 Class Room in a Book (Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy)

2005-10-16T10:53:00.000Z

Adobe Creative Suite 2 Class Room in a Book is part of the official training series for Adobe products. This book provides various training projects that cover different fields of the graphic design.

These fields are covered using the application included in the Adobe Creative Suite as following:

Image editing with Adobe Photoshop CS2.
Drawing and illustrating with Adobe Illustrator CS2.
Page layout with Adobe InDesign CS2.
Web design with GoLive CS2.
Client reviews and printout with Adobe Acrobat 0.7 Professional and Adobe Reader
File Sharing with Adobe Version Cue CS2.
Organizing assets with Adobe Bridge.

If you got a project that needs different graphic contents such as web pages and printouts, this book will provide you a complete solution of how to implement the Adobe CS2 applications to manage and work in your project.

These series is also the official training for the Adobe Certified Expert exam.

Although this book is not a helping guide for Adobe applications, but it provides a how-to steps that complete your knowledge of the Adobe Creative Suite application with practice and training.

Product Details:
Adobe Creative Suite 2 Class Room in a Book
Publisher: Adobe Press
ISBN: 0321349822

Reviewing Inside 3ds Max 7 (Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy)

2005-09-25T10:24:00.000Z

Before I started reading the Inside 3ds Max 7 book, I had read the authors biography. Most of them got a long history with 3ds Max, which makes this book a must-read experience.

The authors described each tool in the program and showed its strength without focusing on a specific production process, which makes this book suitable for all 3ds Max users in many fields.

The Inside 3ds Max 7 is for intermediate and advanced users. So, if you are new with 3ds Max, try to get a basic background before start reading this book to be able to acquire all the experience included in the book. The 3ds Max 7 book gives you a great experience with the program features that make you able to do professional tricks and effects.

The first part of the book shows what is new in 3ds Max 7 concerning each feature. And the following parts go deeper in program features to fully cover the program tools.

The 3ds Max book is a great book and will surely give you a solid experience with the program and its features.

Product Details:

Book Name: Inside 3ds Max 7

Written by: Sean Bonney

Publisher: New Riders Press

ISBN: 0735713871

Reviewing The Comupter in The Visual Arts (Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy)

2005-09-20T05:11:00.000Z

In her book "The Computer in the Visual Arts" , Anne Morgan filled the gap between computer concept and art concept for those who want to use computer in visual arts or miss the computer graphic concepts, while being more concern in learning tools and graphic software.

This book takes you through the history of graphic design and how the new technology comes to life with new concepts in all the computer graphic fields; like printing, 2D and 3D graphics, and how these concepts are related to develop the computer hardware and tools.

The title is accurate in delivering the idea included in the book. I find "The Computer in the Visual Arts" useful for beginner and advanced users of the computer graphics either for the visual arts or the commercial proposes.

The "The Computer in the Visual Art" book consists of 12 chapters. Anne started her book with a brief history of the computer art in the first chapter and concerned in chapters 2 and 4 with the 2D graphics, while the 3 ^rd chapter was about the computer hardware used in the computer graphics. The color concepts are covered in 5^th chapter and the concepts of the printing are described in the 6^th chapter.

The 3D concepts are described in the 7^th, 8^th and 9^th chapters, the video concepts are described in the 10 ^th chapter and the multimedia and interactivity are covered in chapter 11. Anne did not miss to mention some of the general concepts of the web in chapter 12.

In the end of the book, Anne included a conclusion and two appendixes about the modern art periods and computer theory.

Also, Anne included a very useful illustration to describe computer concepts. Moreover, she comprised an interesting gallery of computer graphics samples.

Although it is hard to include all the concepts of the fields mentioned in this book, Anne described some important concepts in each field in a simple way, which pushes me to think of reading more of her books.

For me as a graphic designer, I did not find the chance to go that much deeper in the computer graphic concepts, while being more concern in learning tools and graphic software. And when I wanted to know more about the computer concepts, I did not find many books concern about this issue, till I got this book, which was a good opportunity to fill what I miss in the computer graphic concept with the interesting way Anne used.

So, if you are a beginner in computer graphic field and got this book, then it is a good chance for you to know a general knowledge about the different computer concepts in many fields.

Product Details:

Book Name: The Comupter in The Visual Arts

Written by: Anne Morgan Spalter

Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional

ISBN: 0201386003

Reviewing Model RIG Animate 3DS Max 7 (Reviewed by: Rafiq R. Elmansy)

2005-08-29T10:00:00.000Z

Have you ever thought in creating 3D character? If so, then you must asked yourself the following questions:

1- How do I model my character?

2- How do I enhance my character look with materials?

3- How do I animate my new character?

These questions form the basic steps to bring your character to life. Michele Bousquet has answered them in his book Model RIG Animate with 3DS Max 7.

The first and the second chapters answer the first two questions about modeling and adding materials to the character. Starting with pre-training on the tools used in modeling and adding materials, Michele goes step by step in his tutorial and applies each tool on the example included in the book CD.

The preparation for animation process is covered well in the third, fourth and fifth chapters. Chapter 3 teaches you how to assign bones for the model. Adding RIGs to the bones process is described in chapter 4. After completing the bones, chapter 5 is concerned with associating the bones with the model, which is known as the skinning.

My favorite topic, animating the model, is covered in the last two chapters. Chapter 7 is concerned with the character modeling, when chapter 8 concentrates on the facial animation.

This book is a must-have reference for animators, designers and teachers who want to deliver the modeling and animation with rigging features in 3DS Max7 in a simple focused way.

Product Details:

Book Name: Model, Rig, Animate with 3ds max 7

Written by: Michele Bousquet

Publisher: New Riders Press

ISBN: 0321321782

The Digital Video Hacks Review (Reviewed by Rafiq R. Elmansy)

2005-08-15T10:32:00.000Z

The Digital Video Hacks by Joshua Paul gives you a shortcut to produce low cost movies by providing some useful tips and tools hacks for the movie production process.

With this book, you do not need studio expensive equipments to get a professional looking movie. All you need is to look around you for inexpensive tools to help getting your movie a professional look.

Joshua has organized the hacks in this book into eight chapters according to the stages of the video production process.

The first chapter describes the most important stage to save money and produce a professional looking movie. It is the preparing stage, where you do the planning, storyboarding and organizing your work.
The lighting related hacks that help create low cost lighting effects are introduced in the second chapter.
The third chapter is concerning about acquiring your movie, which include hacks about how to shoot you movie and distribute it.
The fourth chapter introduces hacks to help create high quality output when editing your movie.
Chapter 5 shows you how to create audio that will grasp the attention of your audience's eye and ears. This leaves a greater effect than presenting the idea to the eye only.
Effects help deliver your message and visualizing your storyboard with interesting way that remains in the mind of your audience. So, the hacks in the sixth chapter are concerning about this interesting part of the movie production process.
After finishing your movie, the hacks in the seventh chapter help distributing you work with variety of ways such as using the internet, cell phones and pocket pc.
Joshua finishes his book with some general hacks that are useful in presenting your movie in chapter 8.

Many of us are interested in creating low cost movies. I think this book is good for all who want to create personal movies for memories. It is also good for web designers who want to enhance their web site design with new video media under the limited budget of the web projects. Digital Video Hacks is one of the rare books that cover this kind of video projects.

The Digital Video Hacks Review

Written By Joshua Paul

Publisher: O'Reilly

ISBN: 0596009461

Reviewing Developing Digital Short Films (Reviewed by Rafiq R. Elmansy)

2005-07-20T07:01:00.000Z

Sherri Sheridan takes you in her book Developing Digital Short Films through a very spectacular trip in the most interesting design topics which is about films and animation production industry.

While moving through this interesting educational trip, you will find Sherri stands out with her tips, proverbs of famous people and exercises, which is the only way to fully digest the content of the book.

This practice opens your eyes widely to see your favorite movies with a new vision. Every part of the film will remind you with a concept or a principle Sherri has mentioned in this book. Then you will realize how much interesting this filed is. And for sure, a dream to create your own movie comes to mind.

As said, " This book will not make you Steven Spielberg, but it is a good step to start with", this book gives you a strong background in the field of animation. Not only the people that interest in working in the field of short films who can use this book, but also all who work in the filed of animation, including cartoons and web and digital animation. It will give the key to add a flavor to your animation and create eye-catching ideas with the principles used in film production industry.

This book is divided into three parts that take you step by step to reach by the end of the book to create a complex idea. Enhanced with the exercises after every step. The first part (Digital Storytelling) prepare you to create your own story and develop it to create a story board for your film, in this part you will learn the concepts and principles of creating interesting story and develop it through its stages using its basic elements (Plot, Character, and Theme).

After writing your story, Sherri takes you to the next step in part two (Visualizing Your Scripts) which converts your story into a storyboard ready for production. In this part, you will learn how to use film elements like cameras and locations to well deliver your story target to the audience. This part is very important to learn the principles of filmmaking and animation. However, it is important for all who works in the animation field.

The third part (Creating Digital Short Films for Different Production Styles) is about using different techniques to come up with your film into the production phase applying all what you learnt through the book.

This book provides a great experience for all who work in the fields of films production, cartoon and animation.

Developing Digital Short Films

Written By Sherri Sheridan

ISBN: 073571231X

Flash Hacks Book Review

2005-06-09T05:38:00.000Z

(Rafiq R. Elmansy review for O'reilly book "Flash Hacks ")

Flash MX 2004 creative work depends -in most of it- on tricks and mind digging. However, like other members in the Hack family, Sham Bhangal's book (Flash Hack) has dug the minds and came up with 100 of the most interesting Flash tricks that are distinguished in a very smart way depending on their type.

In this book, found a group of the tips and tricks for beginner and professional designers and developers. Beginner designers and developers can develop their ability to create their own tricks through reading this book thoroughly, as beside describing his thoughts within each trick topic, Sham has attached at the end of each trick a Final Thoughts part as a conclusion to ensure that the reader has completely grasped his idea.

This book is written by Sham Bhangal and to find more about it you can visit the following link:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/flashhks/index.html

Macromedia and the community

2005-05-17T10:23:00.000Z

(Rafiq R. Elmansy wrote:)

Although Macromedia is not a very big company like Microsoft or IBM, it created a big community including its employees, users and others who interest in its technology and products to communicate with each other and interact to learn new things every day.

Learning and knowledge are the best thing that macromedia provided to its community. For those who eager to learn, Macromedia is not just a company, it is a teacher provides us with every knowledge and support we need through its web site, blogs, seminars and supporting groups like Team macromedia and User Groups.

Macromedia has served its community very well, and this community that moves forward with the desire of its members to learn and interact shall not stop whatever the circumstances are.

Following up: "Work in Progress" article for Tony Lopez in Macromedia Consulting blog

2005-05-17T10:22:00.000Z

(Rafiq R. Elmansy wrote)

I read Tony words (http://www.markme.com/mc/archives/007720.cfm), and I would like to say that these great words are presented Macromedia like our eyes see it. this Company that provided us with knowledge, support, and the best thing Macromedia provided is this community that enable us from communicating and sharing ideas around the world.

Thanks Tony for these words and I am sure that all of us share the same vesion.

Macromedia-review has been aggregated to Macromedia XML News Aggregator (MXNA 2.0)

2005-05-11T19:20:00.000Z

Welcome to my blog site Macromedia-review that contain articles and reviews regarding Macomedia Flash and technology.

The blog has just been aggregated to Macromedia XML News Aggregator (MXNA 2.0).

This aggregator is a great tool for ideas to be spread among Macromedia community and I hope to share my ideas with all of you.

Welcome again and many thanks for you Christian Cantrell and Mike Chambers for your help in aggregating this blog.

Rafiq R. ELmansy

MMUG-Egypt Manager

Certifid Macromedia Professional

rafiqelmansy@yahoo.com

Applying media specification in e-learning courses in Macromedia Flash

2005-05-10T10:52:00.000Z

When we talk about success in a learning course project, we realize that good design and planning are the main factors in the success of the project. However, creating such projects in Flash means you need to be even more concerned about planning and design, because it is the nature of Flash to support many platforms. You can publish your project to work in more that one environment, such as web and desktop, at the same time.

Planning for the project involves several important issues including project schedule, the involved team, content structure, reviewing, testing, and media specifications. These will be our topics in this article. However, we will be concerned with graphic design and content display.

We can divide media specification into two parts:

1- Planning your work in Flash, and file management

2- Interface graphic design, navigation, and content display

1 - Planning your work in Flash, and file management

Flash projects have the advantage of working on multiple platforms, such as desktop, web, or mobile devices. However, this means you need to take possible multiple platform support into account in your planning. Another consideration is whether you should build the project in one file, or separate it into several *.swf files. Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages.

One file project several advantages including:

a- It is simpler for small projects, and for the novice developer, who has trouble managing a multiple file project.

b- It avoids complex coding and problems due to losing target.

Its disadvantages include:

a- It results in big files, which could be run only on the desktop and but needs a well-configured computer to run the project without problems.

b- Complex timelines make it hard to edit, especially with other developers working on the same project

c- It makes editing and updating the project a difficult process as you have to open a large file to make a small change to, say, a sound or lesson content. Hence, you will need to re-publish the whole project, which is a waste of time and a less professional process.

Note that even in a single-file project, you should arrange your file into scenes or movie clips.

Experience has shown that separating the project into several SWF files is the best way to manage Flash projects.

It is a more professional method and several advantages including:

a- It is easy to deploy in multiple platforms, because it results in smaller file sizes that you can use on both the desktop and the web.

b- It is easy to edit and update, as you only need to edit the individual sound file or lesson content file without opening a single large file. Further, you will only need to publish the edited part not the entire project file.

c- It is a better-organized and professional way to arrange a project's file.

d- It has simpler timelines, as the timeline is distributed across all the project files.

e- It does not need an overly powerful computer configuration, as the processor only needs to deal with separate smaller files, and loads them only when needed.

The disadvantages of this method are few, but include:

1- It requires better coding skills in order to manage the code through all the project files.

2- You need to ensure that all the project files are in their correct paths to avoid navigation problems.

With multiple files, it is a good idea to use shared libraries for sharing the most used items in your project. In this way, you reduce the size of files and avoid redundancy. In addition, this enables you to edit the shared interfaces elements, themes and objects by editing the shared library file.

After deciding how you will structure your project, start on the program design and decide which screen will come first. Start with an animated intro to give a short brief about the course. This can vary from a short course logo animation to a long animation. When using a long animation, consider a "Skip Intro" button, as forcing your audience to watch the intro every time they enter the course is very frustrating. For the Multilanguage courses, give the audience the choice to choose their language by putting a language selection screen before they enter the main menu for the course. If the course requires a login with identity, provide a login screen after the language screen to ensure it will be in the appropriate language. Follow this with the main screen, which provides a menu for each part of your course. See figure (1-1).

Figure (1-1)

The screen structure of the course

2- Interface graphic design, navigation, and content display

Next, you should consider the media and graphic specification. This is what the audience sees, and includes the content of the course. Planning for this includes:

1- Themes and interface design

2- Navigation, function and other interface contents

3- Text design, writing specification and the content area

4- Video and audio

5- Animation and special effects

You should design there to provide a simple, easy to navigate and non-distractive course, that delivers the contents to the audience in the best possible way.

2.1 - Themes and interface design

Themes and interface design are the first way to grasp the attention of the audience and introduce the course to them. These should be relevant to the course content and environment. You should consider information about your audience including age, nationality, interests. This information is very important when choosing the course theme and the interface design. For instance, if you are designing a course for schoolchildren, you should not use dark colors or grays, as this is not attractive for the students. Instead, use attractive but not distractive colors that appeal to the children's eyes. See figure (2-1-1).

Figure (2-1-1)

Screen from a course for school children

Similarly, for a business course, which will be provided to employees, avoid complex interface elements. It is also a good idea to use color themes that are the same as used by the company. See figure (2-1-2)

Figure (2-1-1)

Screen from a course for a business company

Generally, there are some issues you should consider when designing the interface:

a- The colors of the theme should be comfortable for the eyes, non-distractive, and help the audience concentrate on the content.

b- The theme should represent the course or the general themes of the company that will present the course.

c- The themes should not offend the culture, religion or nationality of the audience.

d- Consider the navigation buttons and the static items like logos and main titles.

Ensure the interface is small and not overly heavy, so it plays well on different computer configurations. It is a good idea to use a mixture of bitmaps and vector graphics to produce a professional interface. Vector graphics are useful in areas that may be scaled or animated; otherwise, bitmaps are good in static areas, as they are smaller and require less computer processing.

2.2 - Navigation, function and other interface contents

Navigation, function and content are vital parts of the interface, as they enable your audience to use the course content. However, we will divide them into two parts; interface content, and navigation and function.

a- Interface content

The interface design should be simple and clear, so the viewer can recognize all the content from their first look at the screen. However, it is important to keep the interface content consistent through the application. For instance, changing the place of the navigation buttons will disturb users, as they will have to search for the buttons on every screen they enter. See figure (2-2-1) It is a good idea to keep the interface content in a separate SWF file and load the course content into it; this keeps most of the interface content unchanged throughout the course.

Figure (2-1-1)

interface content should be consistent through the menus

b- Navigation and function buttons

As said before, these are how your user will interact with the course. As a part of the interface, the navigation buttons and functions should be simple and clear. You should consider the placement of the buttons, and any animation used, as part of the interface design.

Adding animation to the buttons attracts the user's eye to them. Use the animation to help indicate the function of the button, but do not use heavy animation, as the user will not want to see the animation of the button every time he enters a link. In addition, adding voice to explain the function of a button is a good idea, as long as it does not interrupt any use of voice in the content itself.

2.3 - Text design, writing specification and the content area

Reserve a suitable place to view the content, and keep in mind that this is what is most important for your user. Following are some tips to consider when choosing the text and the content area specifications.

a - The text font and size should be clear, readable, use a common font for most audiences. The font size should suit the audience. For example, use a big font size in kids' courses, as the content in each page should be minimal. On the other hand, if you are providing a company employee course, you need to present a lot of information, so keep the font size normal and readable and use the ordinary fonts as 12-14 point in Times New Roman font. The text color should contrast well with the background color. Very dark text colors suit most content types.

b -The content area should occupy the largest part of the interface, as it will include the text, video and any other demonstrative materials. The background color of the content area should contrast with the displayed text color. Animation in the content is not always a good idea especially when loading the content dynamically. If you have to do animation in showing the content, do it in a smart way. For example, keep the animation in the static parts and use simple animation techniques such as masking, typewriter effect or fading in and out. Flash and other macromedia products provide great technology for dynamic data loading ("Rich Internet Applications"). Using this technology enables you to load the course content dynamically from database files. Other media such as video and audio may also be loaded externally from files like FLV for video and MP3 for audio. This great feature makes editing and updating your course content a very easy and safe process.

2.4 - Video and audio

Video and audio provides you great attractive demonstrative materials that cannot be affordable in other linear educational materials.

Video

Macromedia provides you with three different methods of incorporating video into your course. You should choose the most effective method according to your needs and how will you deliver the course. Video files either can be external files or embedded directly within the course file itself. Flash MX 2004 comes with a very helpful media component to use to control your external movie file with no coding experience. Following is a brief overview of the three video techniques that flash provides to deliver video to your audience, both online and offline.

a- Embed video file into flash timeline

It is an old method, available since earlier versions of Flash. In this method, you import the video file directly into the timeline and compress it using Sorenson spark codec. Below are some of the advantages and disadvantages of this method:

Advantages:

1- It is easy to use, as it does not need any coding skills. You just import the video the same way you import an image.

2- It saves the video file inside the project files. This avoids losing the video file or links to it.

Disadvantages:

1- It results in a bigger file size, as the video file will be included in the file.

2- It is hard to edit and update, as you need to open the main file every time you want to edit the video and republish it again.

3- It does not enable you to present big video files, as it is limited in the size of the total flash file. This causes problems in showing videos longer than 120 seconds.

4- It forces you to use low quality videos to keep your total file size small as possible.

5- It affects the performance of the total file badly as it increases the file sizes enormously.

6- It is not applicable to online course

b- Progressive video download

With this method, you load video file externally using the flash component we mentioned previously. The video file is saved in a server that uses Flash server technology, and is downloaded progressively when the Flash Player requests it. This means that the flash player plays one downloaded package of video information (first and) while it waits for the next package. However, the user has to see part of the animation and then wait for the next part to download. Below are the advantages and disadvantages of this method:

Advantages:

1- It results a smaller file size for the SWF itself, as the FLV video file is separate, and is located on the server or the local machine.

2- It is easy to edit and update, as you do not need to open the main flash file to update or edit, and you do not need to republish it.

3- The SWF file download time is much faster, as it does not download the video files unless the flash player requests it.

4- More secure for the video files, as it does not download on the local machine. You SWF will download the video directly into the player as requested.

Disadvantages:

1- This Method needs knowledge of coding to control the video file's connection with the server.

2- The user has to wait until after the delivery of the next package to the client side player.

c- Streaming video download

This way is similar to the progressive method, but the difference is the appropriate parts of the video file download when the flash player requests specific frames. For example, when the user moves the play head to a specific point then the player requests these exact frames from the FLV file. This method is suitable for course that requires chat sessions between the users as it delivers the exact frames of video information to all users at the exact time regardless of the connection speed or the computer configuration.

Audio

Audio lets the audience's ears and eyes work together to more effectively absorb the information in the content. That is, content using a combination of audio and video delivers the information much faster. The sound should be clear using a normal language and voice. For example, do not use funny voices in demonstrating the content, as this disturbs the audience. Avoid using many layers for sound; merge all similar sounds in one sound track, otherwise sound troubles may result from many sound layers. Do not overlap sounds, as this disturbs and frustrates the audience. Stop the first sound, or fade it out, then begin the next one. The audio quality has a noticeable effect on the published file, so choose the suitable quality that is not too high to increase the file size, nor too low to reduce the sound quality.

2.5 - Special effects

Special effects, including cartoon animation or 3D objects, are a good way to demonstrate and explain the content, as long as you use these with consideration of their effect on your audience. For instance, do not use funny cartoons for professional audiences, as this may frustrates them and makes your program appear less professional. The content specialist should plan how you should mix these effects and other media, such as video and audio, with the original content.

Conclusion

In conclusion, you have to be careful when designing e-learning courses, as delivering the content in a perfect way is your main goal. The following are general tips to consider when designing an e-learning course:

Delivering the content is your main objective. Focus on it and do not change your aim to anything else when designing the course.
Attract the audience with good graphic interface, animation, sound and other tools, but do not disturb him by over use.

Use graphic, interface, video, sound, and other elements to show the course content. Do not use the course content simply to showcase those elements.

Reviewing Rich Internet Applications Technology

2005-05-10T10:49:00.000Z

Although the Macromedia products are leading programs in interactive applications, especially flash, with this tool it is a piece of cake to add video and animation into you program. However, these application still needed to be brought to life with dynamic data and more interaction. Rich Internet Application (RIA) technology has achieved this dream to produce an interactive product merges attractive and dynamic content.

Rich Internet Application (RIA) technology merges the capabilities of all Macromedia products to create solutions that suit the most of the needs of the developers varying from web based applications to e-learning applications. Flash MX 2004 builds attractive application interfaces with animation and sound effects and delivers video to the audience and gives the developer the choice to use the method that suits the developer's application and client. Flash communication server and breeze help to create learning applications and chat rooms. Robo Help and Flash e-paper are used to create help files and documentations. Flex, Dreamweaver and Coldfusion are used to create dynamic application for web applications.

As we see before, macromedia products cooperate together to create applications that suit most of the developer's needs. This is not the only advantage of using RIA technology. This cooperation comes up with a low cost products, because RIA present to the developer all what he needs to create a full application with easy to use tools which saves a lot of time and money. The other advantage of RIA applications is the availability to be optimized for other platforms than the web, using a pre-planning steps and some modification in the product. It can be used for other environments such as desktop and mobile devices, which saves cost, effort and time as well.

Finally, the expectations are great from macromedia new technology RIA to create eye-catching, interactive and dynamic application.

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Product Details: Book Name: Inside 3ds Max 7 Written by: Sean Bonney Publisher: New Riders Press ISBN: 0735713871

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Product Details:

Book Name: Inside 3ds Max 7

Written by: Sean Bonney

Publisher: New Riders Press

ISBN: 0735713871