Flash Queen's Place

Trip Case Travel Tracker

2010-06-23T16:17:00.000-07:00

I am an avid iPhone user. I began traveling extensively for my job in April (flying weekly from Atlanta to Chicago) and I needed something that could track my flights and hotels and put those flights on my iCal calendar which syncs to my iPhone. I found the perfect application, but you don't need an iPhone to use it, the Trip Case web application can be used stand alone.

TRIPCASE is a service that allows you to load all of your travel information into one spot and provides companion support for iCal, iPhone, iPad, iTouch, and e-mail alerts. By logging on their website at www.tripcase.com and creating a user account you can load your travel information or even try and have it load it for you from several popular travel sites such as Expedia (although I never really got it to work, maybe I wasn’t patient enough for the information to be available).

Better yet, if you own an iPhone, or an IPad with 3G (iTouch will also work but you must be in WiFi) you can enter your travel plans via the very easy to use iPhone application, which is FREE (and free is good).

Download the application to your iPhone or iPad Simply enter your flight information (airline, flight number, date, confirmation number (optional) into the application instead of using the website.

Regardless whether you entered your travel information via the web or the iPhone application Trip Case will prove you up to date information about the flight departure/arrival times, and gate information (regardless of airline) via alerts to your e-mail address of record. Merely set this up on their website.

The best thing I like about this service is that it will interface all your travel details into iCal automatically. Merely log onto the website and select the SETTINGS tab and set up the iCal interface.

Create an automatic refresh in iCal or manually refresh the subscribed calendar after you add new trip information into Trip Case.

Now go travel and stay informed! I simply can’t travel without this application.

Cool Alphabet Animation

2009-10-22T07:06:00.000-07:00

Here is a small animation that I did of morphing letters to the Cool Alphabet Song by Didi Pop.

For Full Screen Version

Rotoscoping with After Effects

2009-09-02T09:12:00.000-07:00

Here is a little fun exercise utilizing the Rotoscoping (it really is just creating and modifying masks over time). Here is a screen shot of the video that I started with that has the background in it.
Here is the completed fictitious 15 second video where she is embedded without the background.

Kaliedoscope

2009-06-16T17:54:00.001-07:00

A little Flash fun!
Click on the Image to Activate Kaleidoscope

Willy's Day

2009-06-09T18:20:00.000-07:00

This is my first animation of any substance. Willy and Wynne are my original characters.

Enjoy!

Full Screen Version Click Here

Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet

2009-06-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

I just got a new LARGE Intuos 4 tablet (18.7" x 12.6"). It is VERY nice! Even though I have a Cintiq21UX (I had a Intuos 3 6×8 before the Cintiq which I sold) it is a great compliment for everyday use when I am not drawing. I need the Cintiq for that purpose.

I really like the buttons function buttons along the left that light up and show you what you have programmed into them. The Zoom/Scroll wheel is also very nice.

Another nice feature is being able to move the mini-usb connection to the tablet to either the back or front depending on your computer setup.

The new pen holder is nice with a cradle across the top of it and additional “nibs” contained inside. The pen has been redesigned, but I didn’t notice much difference except that the “toggle” switch on the pen itself seems to be a bit more recessed than the old pen. Not sure after one night using it whether or not that is a good or bad thing.

Good job to Wacom!

E-Learning for Kids - States of Matter

2009-06-07T20:08:00.000-07:00

States of Matter

E-Learning for Kids is a global organization that provides FREE e-learning courses to children around the globe.

I volunteered my time and energy as an Instructional Designer to write the storyboard for this course and to follow the development to completion.

Please share this site with your friends and colleagues and spread the word. All children deserve the chance to learn.

How to Cheat in Flash CS4

2009-06-07T18:57:00.000-07:00

by Chris Georgenes

How to Cheat in Flash CS4, this is the book (revised for CS4) that really helped me get started in doing Flash animation. Chris's revised book is everything you would want to know about using Flash CS4 as an animator. Great new chapters covering the new features of CS4 along with some of the tried and true methods applicable to recent versions of Flash.

Chapters requiring CS4 are clearly marked with an icon, so even if you your still using CS3 you can still use this book with some of the new updated content.

Great section on basic interactivity using ActionScript with examples in AS2.0 and AS3.0 (Thanks David Stiller).

Dreamweaver the Missing Manual

2009-06-07T18:30:00.000-07:00

By David Sawyer McFarland

About this Book
Dreamweaver CS4 The Missing Manual is a 1,064 page book. This is not a book you will want to put under your pillow at night, however you may want to use it as an exercise weight (it’s a BIG heavy book).

Seriously, this is a very good book for the beginner, intermediate or advanced Dreamweaver user. The book contains a comprehensive table of contents where materials can be easily found and accessed quickly without having to dig through the index at the back of the book (although the index is also thorough). The book is more of a “how to” book with step-by-step instructions than simply a reference manual.

The book is well organized into six basic parts of:
1. Building a Web Page
2. Building a Better Web Page
3. Bringing your Pages to Life
4. Building a Web Site
5. Dreamweaver Power
6. Dynamic Dreamweaver

For the beginner, section one is comprehensive enough that you can adequately build a small static website. Part two gets into more in-depth use of Cascading Style Sheets (liquid layouts, fixed layouts, elastic layouts, positioning of elements, navigation, etc.). In part three, Forms, inserting Flash movies, and Spry menus (drop down and fly out menus) are covered. Part four covers the intricate details of publishing your site to an Internet server and testing your site. Part five describes the use of templates and snippets (reusable HTML code) to standardize web pages layouts for large sites. In part six, dynamic website development (accessing a database) is covered. With Dreamweaver you can link to a database (MySQL, MS Access, Cold Fusion --- not SQL Server) and use Dreamweaver's wizards to help you create dynamic web sites.

Exercises are embedded into the chapters so that you can work through examples and see what the real pages look like “on the web”. The exercise files are on the web at www.missingmanuals.com (click on the CD icon) along with links to working pages on the web of the solutions.

About the Author
The author David Sawyer McFarland has been a web developer since 1995 and has been using and teaching Dreamweaver since version 2. He currently teaches at Portland State University in Oregon.

How I got started in Animation

2009-06-06T20:41:00.000-07:00

So, how did all of this start?

I first started getting interested in web design and development when I took over the website for the car club that I belong to. While learning how to maintain that website I learned Flash. About a year later I started teaching Flash at the local community college where I originally learned it.

Since then I learned how to design and develop web sites from simple static web sites to more complex e-commerce sites. I have even dabbled in some print design by producing newsletters and brochures. In my recent employment opportunity I helped develop content for eight e-learning Finance courses that each averaged about 2 hours in length. I continue to teach Flash's timeline and drawing tools, and how to make things move also known as tweens. More recently I have begun to teach Flash’s programming language ActionScript 3. Although I knew Flash’s drawing tools well I never had really done any real animations other than doing some small banner ads with scrolling or blinking text or images that faded.

I was sitting at my computer one night going through the list of Flash courses on Lynda. Com when I came across a tutorial of Flash Animation Tricks and Tips that had been recorded at the 2007 Flashward conference. I opened up the tutorial and what do I see? I see the cutest little girl with big eyes and curls (cartoonish) riding a red tricycle going around in a circle. She says, “My daddy is an animator and he makes cartoons for TV and the internet, and he even wrote a book and I am in it.” Those were words of Andrea Rose, daughter of animator Chris Georgenes. I knew from that second that this is what I wanted to learn to do with my Flash skills. I watched intently as Chris’s recorded presentation of animation tricks and tips played.

A few weeks later my husband and I traveled to Disney World in Florida and while we were taking the Keys to the Kingdom tour in Magic Kingdom the tour guide asked all of the participants if they could have any one job in Disneyland what would that be? Many people said train engineers, or the keeper of the Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, and as everyone answered I thought hard and when he asked me, I said “Animator”. When those words flowed from my brain and out of mouth I knew I was about to embark on a journey. While visiting MGM Studios I spent as much time as I could near and about the animation studios to learn more.

Upon returning home I began to learn more and I picked up several books including the Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams. I read intently although I still didn’t really have a clue all he was talking about. I also knew that my artistic skills were a bit wanting, but I still wanted to try to learn these skills. The more I learned the more fascinated and intrigued I was about the whole process. I picked up Chris Georgene’s book “How to Cheat in Flash CS3” which is full of great animation techniques and I started to practice. With the help of more drawing tutorials in Flash from Cartoon Solutions and Cartoon Smart I learned the Flash drawing tools in depth. Even at this point I still barely had any real idea of the skill set that a animator must possess to be able to animate. I knew if I was going to learn this skill that I would need a mentor and need to improve my computer graphic skills in many areas.

I found an on-line multimedia program at Sessions.edu where I could enhance my skills required to learn how to animate. Luckily for me Chris Georgenes mentors the Flash Animation course that I choose and this is really where the rubber hit the road. This has been the beginning of being able to create animations. Without Chris’s step-by-step guidance to bring the whole process together I don’t think I could of done this on my own. I will be forever grateful for his patience and guidance. I can only hope that my skills as an animator will improve with time.

This blog will contain items noteworthy concerning Adobe Flash for both web development and animation, web development in general, and other topics of interest to me. I hope you find the links to many different resources useful, I will try and keep these up to date as I continue to find useful sites.

Jelly Fish Invaders

2009-05-10T19:43:00.000-07:00

This is a very simple game based on the legacy game Space Invaders

Jelly Fish Invaders Full Screen