This Blonde Girl Walked Up To Me…

Here is another great use of Flash Video that the gentlemen will find visually stunning (ahem) and the ladies will find appealing to use!

http://www.knickerpicker.com/dressing-room.asp

According to the stats, www.knickerpicker.com went live sometime around the beginning of 2008 and achieved over one million unique visitors within three months.

I would imagine the majority of those visitors will have been male…for reasons that it’s not that hard to figure out!

Due to the clever thinking behind the product presentation, the website is very viral and although it is still in beta, with the amount of traffic it is receiving, it should have a bright future.

Oh and before we get carried away, the blonde one’s mine!

Flash Video for Professionals: Expert Techniques for Integrating Video on the Web.

Flash Video for Professionals: Expert Techniques for Integrating Video on the Web written by Lisa Larson and Renee Costantini

Having got a few chapters into Flash Video for Professionals: Expert Techniques for Integrating Video on the Web I would say the book is a little heavy going, however as the old saying goes, if it was easy we’d all be doing it.

This book is probably the next logical step up from Stefan Richter’s book, as it drops you right in at the deep end from the start.

I will post a full review once I have finished it.

Reviews currently on Amazon.com can be found here.

I have found the cheapest place to purchase to book in the UK is -

http://books.theregister.co.uk/index.asp

The accompanying website to the book is -

http://www.flashconnections.com

Programming Flash Communication Server.

Programming Flash Communication Server by Robert Reinhardt, Dave Yang and Brian Lesser.

Reviews currently on Amazon.com can be found here.

I have found the cheapest place to purchase to book in the UK is -

http://www.amazon.co.uk

The accompanying website to the book is -

http://www.flashsupport.com/forum/

Learning Flash Media Server 2.

Flash Media Server 2 by William Sanders.

The book has a 3 out of 5 on the publishers website.

I have found the cheapest place to purchase to book is -

http://www.oreilly.com

The accompanying website to the book is -

http://www.sandlight.com/

Hands-On Guide to Flash Video: Web Video and Flash Media Server.

One of the first comprehensive books published on Flash Video was Stefan Richter’s Hands-On Guide to Flash Video: Web Video and Flash Media Server.

I read it from cover to cover in two weeks and I thought it was excellent, even though I had already aquired a lot of the knowledge the book covered.

Here is my review of the book for Amazon.co.uk -

Stefan Richter is one of the leading developers in the area of Flash Video.

Flash Video is without doubt set take over the web, simply because of the way it can be integrated with webpage’s to create a more dynamic user experience that can also be interacted with, as well as it’s ability to be able to perform the functions of a standard web page.

Stefan’s book gives a good introduction to Flash Video, starting simply with some of the considerations to be taken into account when preparing your video content, how to compress it and ultimately how to present it along with the various methods of presentation – streaming / progressive etc.

Stefan has devoted 3 chapters to the subject of Flash Media Server including an explanation of how to install and configure the software as well as discussing some of Flash Media Server’s more advanced techniques.

Knowledge about this subject is still thin on the ground and this book will give you plenty to go at regarding Flash Video.

Stefan has done a great job, putting a book out that will get people on the first run of the ladder and I highly recommend it.

Other reviews are available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk , and they think very highly of the book as well.

I have found the cheapest place to purchase to book in the UK is -

http://books.theregister.co.uk/index.asp

The accompanying website to the book is -

http://www.flashvideobook.com/

Adobe Flash Media Encoder 2.5.

Adobe have announced Flash Media Encoder 2.5 is now available for you to download for free.

The Flash Media Encoder 2.5 can be used in conjunction with Flash Media Server to compress a video stream before it gets delivered to the .swf file via Flash Media Server.

Flash Media Encoder 2.5 now has support for H.264 as well as offering more support for Audio in the form of Nellymoser or MP3 encoding.

The software is currently only available for Windows only.

You can download Adobe Flash Media Encoder 2.5 here.

I Just Can’t Help It…

I finally got around to downloading the new Nine Inch Nails album Ghosts I-IV on Thursday last week, I went for the $5.00 option, obviously because I am tight Yorkshireman!

I was very impressed by the download, not only the music but the PDF files and the graphics that came with it.

On Saturday morning I immersed myself in the album and was blown away by Ghost 13, which I think is a stunning piece of work.

What really struck me was how I could envisage a visual for the music of Ghost 13 almost straight away.

After 6 hours hammering it out on After Effects, I finally came up with a short 40 second promo video for the track.

This then led on to presenting it along with getting all the PDF files in one place where they could be viewed at leisure.

Ladies and Gentlemen – I give you my very own Ghosts I-IV promo spot!

Watch the video and then click the link to see the Flash Book.

Full Screen H.264 Flash Video Sample.

Fabio Sonnati, the Italian Flash Video specialist has posted a sample of video encoded at just 500kb/sec.

What’s so good about that you may be wondering, well it shows the capabilities of what can be achieved by the H.264 Codec at such a low encoding rate.

I think you can safely say the results are very impressive, it also plays in full screen just by double clicking on the video.

Fabio has also just published the Flash Video Factory Blog, unfortunately it’s written in his native Italian, so unless you can speak and read Italian, you’ll need to find a translator before you take a look!

Go to and learn – Lee Brimlow has finished the overhaul!

Lee Brimlow has finished his overhaul of his Flash Tutorials website – www.gotoandlearn.com

There are now video tutorials on the site covering everything from Flash Video to AIR.

Lee has been incredibly generous with his knowledge over the years and also with the effort he has put into www.gotoandlearn.com

It was a resource I have used many times in the past, especially to further my knowledge of Flash Video.

Also don’t forget to check out Lee’s Flash Blog….as he is now working for Adobe, this comes straight from the horses mouth.

Go to and learn…..well, what are you waiting for?

Streaming The Men Of Iron.

I have been involved in the ‘sport’ of paintball as a player on and off for 20 years now, pretty much since it first started.

As an industry it has had its fair share of cowboys and people chasing the fast buck just like any other industry.

However, with the internet now almost over a decade old in terms of mass use, some paintball brands are finally recognising that brand awareness and a good website will get them a long way.

With this in mind, I came across the new Team Ironmen website which I feel encapsulates exactly what the team stand for.

It is done in Flash and incorporates a lot of Flash Video, not only in the introduction, but you can view video of player profiles and watch the team in action.

With a web presence like this and the fact the Ironmen have just won the 2007 Paintball World Cup, it will be no wonder sponsors will be more than happy to part with the cash to help the team out.