Books by Matthew David

Matthew David has been developing Flash-based applications for more than six years. (That makes him very old in this business!) Examples of his work can be found at his web site, http://www.matthewdavid.ws, or you can email him directly at [email protected]. Matthew's most recent publications include content for Flash 5 Magic and Inside Dreamweaver 4. You can also see him popping up in many online magazines such as Sitepoint.com, Windowatch.com, and UDzone.com. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: There are only four people I need to thank: my three kids?Jake, Emma, and Liam?and my beautiful wife. I could not do any of the things I do without you. I love you all.

Mark Baltzegar is an award-winning art director and interactive designer at Terra Incognita, bringing eight years of experience in working with video, print, and animation. Mark's work has been awarded the NY Films International Festival Gold Medal, has won Telly and Emmy awards, and has been recognized in HOW magazine. Like the other members of Terra Incognita's team, Mark has a strong background in the liberal arts. Mark attended the Louisiana Scholars' College, where his concentration was in the humanities and social thought. Mark is also a contributing author to Step-By-Step Digital Design. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: My wife and son, for their generous support; the Terra Incognita family, for their generous support; the Institute of Human Origins, for the generous use of imagery and audio from the Becoming Human interactive documentary.

Veronique Brossier currently works independently, developing games and web interaction design. A technology and art enthusiast, her work aspires to transcend programming and design and to engage the user. Today, Veronique teaches "Interactivity in Flash" in the same program where she received her M.A. when the Internet was in its infancy, the Interactive Telecommunications Program of New York University. Upon graduating from NYU, she worked for the American Museum of National History, designing and programming exhibition kiosks. Afterward, she joined the design studio Funny Garbage, where for three years she held the position of technical director in the animation department. Originally a French import, she has made New York City her home for many years.

Jim Caldwell is a self-taught and ambition-driven creative developer. His background lies within corporate surroundings, working for communications giants such as BellSouth and MCI WorldCom. At present, he is a senior applications developer with MCI WorldCom. Although he has been responsible for the company's intranet applications, his passion is creating new benefits and uses within Flash. His design studio, Innovative FX, LLC (http://www.innovativefx.com), contributes to his success by allowing him to serve clients such as Cisco Systems, Inc. Jim has always been a large part of the design community, moderating at forums such as Ultrashock (http://www.ultrashock.com), We're Here (http://www.were-here.com), and Flashmove (http://www.flashmove.com). Jim is the author of Instant Macromedia Flash 5 (Osborne McGraw Hill). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: I'd like to thank my wonderful wife, Mary, for all the help and support she has given me. I owe the world to her.

John Dalziel is the U.K. correspondent for FlashMagazine. He has written tutorials on date and time for Ultrashock.com and tinkers with his own Flash projects at crashposition.com. He came to Macromedia Flash from a background in game design and is currently working for Pogo Technology, building Flash interfaces for mobile devices. John lives in London with his starfish. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: I'd like to thank my wife, Emma, and my parents for their support; Andrew Gibson for his wonderful photograph; Tom, Gary, and Andy for their inspiration; Jensa and Miko for letting me loose; and Bill Hicks for squeegee-ing my third eye.

Aria Danika is a web designer/developer for BBCi based in London, a moderator at http://www.flashkit.com, and a member of the Hypermedia Research Centre at Westminster University, where she currently pursues a graduate degree in hypermedia studies and interactive design. Aria comes from an arts background and was trained in photography and multimedia. She enjoys working with mixed media across various platforms and also works with Flash at a personal level for experimenting with her art and digital photography. When she is not Flashing or rollerblading, she can be found over at FlashKit.com or actionscript.com, talking all things Flash with the rest of the community. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: There are many people I would like to thank for their time, support, and encouragement and for sharing their skills and knowledge. Many thanks to David Emberton for the opportunity and the inspiration. Also to Mark Fennell, John Starkey, David Petley, Jeremy Carney, Sven Goewie (thanks for all the support guys), and everyone at FlashKit for the opportunity to learn, experiment, and share with other developers our common passion whilst having great fun in the process. Finally, my parents and especially my mom. Thank you!

Robert M. Hall, a native of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is currently the senior developer for mCom LLC (http://www.mcom8.com) located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Robert architects projects and develops ATM machine interfaces, award-winning Internet banking software, and wireless device applications. Prior to mCom, Robert was a consultant at Citicorp and a web developer for USABancshares.com. When Robert is not enjoying the outdoors with his girlfriend, he can be found listening to music, reading, tinkering with electronics, and trying out new technologies. Usually a piece or two of his experiments will wind up on his personal web site: Feasible Impossibilities, http://www.impossibilities.com. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Thanks to Mike Chambers, Anna Marie Pises, and Niamh O Byrne of Macromedia; Phillip Torrone of Fallon & Flashenabled.com; Steve "Leo" Leone of NexusGroup; Daniel Taylor and my friends at mCom LLC; and all the folks who post to Flashcoders. Special thanks to David Dwyer and Theresa Gheen and the rest of the New Riders family for this opportunity; my friends Scott, Bill, and Chuck; my brother, Jimmy; my parents; and my girlfriend, Melissa, for all their support and inspiration.

Andreas Heim is from the small town of Hattenhofen, close to Stuttgart in Germany, a center of German car engineering. Originally intending to become a professional soccer player, his education took him into the area of media studies and programming. After creating an interactive CD-ROM, his focus shifted from film and video to interactive media. His school required him to do a six-month internship, which brought him to Smashing Ideas, where being a soccer-playing-and-beer-drinking German intern was highly respected. He had so much fun in Seattle that he extended his stay to one year before deciding to stay permanently. Andreas currently works on all kinds of cutting-edge digital-media projects, including bringing Flash to devices, while enjoying his time outside of work, snowboarding, and playing soccer. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Thanks to the Flash team for creating the most excellent version of Flash yet, to Troy Parke for his help with designing Flatzee, and to Anna Hall for her support and for feeding me during the nights of writing.

Jason Krogh operates zinc Roe design, a small shop that specializes in advanced Flash development and training. He is actively involved in the Flash community and is a regular contributor to Ultrashock and the Flash Forward conference series. Under Jason's direction, zinc Roe has established itself in the world of children's new media. The company has developed projects for Canada's leading children's broadcasters, including the Family Channel, Teletoon, and TVOntario. Jason has been teaching advanced Flash techniques for more than three years and offers regular ActionScript workshops in Toronto. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Thanks go out to Allan Kennedy for his help in reviewing this chapter, to Dave Yang and Sam Wan for putting up with my questions about OOP techniques, and to David Colquhoun, Jerrold Connors, and Anne-Sophie Brieger for their ongoing support. I would also like to thank all my students?past, present, and future?for their questions, curiosity, and inspiration.

Over the past four years, 2Advanced Studios has flourished from its humble beginnings as the personal portfolio experience and digital canvas of renown motion-graphics designer Eric Jordan into its present form as a leading full-service interactive design and multimedia agency. Based out of Dana Point, California, 2Advanced Studios services a wide array of clients and industries worldwide in the disciplines of web design, interactive multimedia, custom video, and audio production, as well as 3D rendering and traditional print design. For Macromedia Flash MX Magic, contributing 2Advanced authors Eric Jordan and Stephanie Novak have combined their collective design and development expertise to deliver a rewarding presentation of both form and function.

Jessica Speigel co-founded We're Here Forums (http://www.were-here.com), a haven for knowledge-seeking Flash users and the largest privately owned and operated Flash resource site. Jessica began her career as a designer creating web sites for high-profile jewelry designers. Realizing Flash's power for dynamic content, she took a position with PersonalGenie developing unique personalization web applications using Flash as the front end. During this time, Jessica created the front-end to applications for Fortune 500 companies such as Procter & Gamble. Jessica has also contributed Flash-related articles to sites such as CNET's Builder.com, and she has been a contributing author on Flash 5 Studio, New Masters of Flash: The 2002 Annual, and Flash MX: Application Design & Development. In her spare time, Jessica enjoys painting, pottery, and secondhand-furniture shopping and restoration.

Glenn Thomas is one of the founders of Smashing Ideas, a leading digital media services company. Smashing Ideas' projects include the Madonna "Music" Shockwave Single, Email Chess, webcasting the Sydney 2001 Paralympics, Pocket PC games, and web animation shows such as Zombie College. He has been involved with Flash since its inception and has spoken at numerous industry conferences. He authored the book Flash Studio Secrets, which details innovative ways to use Flash in the real world.

Helen Triolo is the owner of i-Technica, a web design shop in the Washington, D.C. area. An electrical engineer turned programmer turned web designer, she became fascinated with Flash after obtaining a copy of Flash 4 and discovering its limitless possibilities for programmable animation and database integration. Addicted ever since, she has used Flash in a variety of client web sites and CDs, has posted an archive of Flash Q&A's (http://i-technica.com/flashlist) and ActionScript tutorials (http://actionscript-toolbox.com), and teaches and writes about ActionScript whenever possible. You can find more of Helen's work at http://www.i-technica.com (business site) and http://www.actionscript-toolbox.com (Flash ActionScript samples and reference). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: My thanks to Theresa, Matthew, and Dave Yang for providing me with the opportunity to work on this book; to my husband, Paul, for providing endless technical support and encouragement; to Nic and Sarah for being willing to cook their own mac-and-cheese when Mom's too busy to cook dinner; and to the many Flashmeisters at the chinwag, flashmacromedia, and flashcoders email lists, from whom I've received a ton of inspiration and support.

Joe Tripician is an Emmy-award-winning producer/writer/director whose work has been broadcast on network and cable television across America, Europe, and Japan. His humor book, The Official Alien Abductee's Handbook, was published by Andrews and McMeel in 1997. Joe is also the author of several feature-film screenplays, including a script optioned by veteran producer Ben Barenholtz. In 1998, Joe co-founded iStreamTV, a streaming media technology company based in New York.

Patricia Geneva Lee Hall is a web software developer from way back...at least as far back as 1998. She has two cats (working on more), one husband (one's enough), and an ever-growing extended family. When not busy tech editing, policing her husband's mad-scientist hobbies, or building random pieces of web software, she finds court TV shows strangely amusing. Everyone needs to have a vice, don't they?

Jennifer Hall is senior technology officer for JPMorganChase and is also teaching Flash and Director for Multimedia Enterprise. She has been a contributing author for Flash 5 Magic and Flash 5 Visual Insight. Jennifer has worked with leading multimedia companies including Top Drawer (Human Code Sapient), Thought Interactive (Meritage Technologies), Cortex Interactive, and Eyeland Studio for clients including Disney, Prentice Hall, Nokia, Lycos UK, and Holt, RineHart, and Winston. In her spare time, Jennifer eats, reads, runs, sits, rock climbs, dances, loves, and lives. Visit her at http://www.jennifershall.com.

Laura McCabe is a freelance Flash designer and developer currently living in Baltimore, Maryland. Her eclectic interests have led her through an undergraduate degree in psychology, studies in art and design at the Maryland Institute College of Art and the University of Baltimore, and, ultimately, to Flash. In six years of internet experience, she's honed her skills in web production, information architecture, design, and development while working with clients such as AARP. Her Flash designs have been featured at the collaborative site http://www.poemsthatgo.com, and her personal playground is http://www.stolenglance.com. In her spare time she is a photographer, writer, trainer, editor, and recovering book junkie.

Chrissy Rey is the vice president of education and a senior developer at digitalorganism. She is also the founder and webmaster of FlashLite and the founder of the Baltimore Macromedia Organization (BAMMO). A Maryland native, Chrissy graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in zoology (of all things). After a brief stint as a zookeeper, and then as an animal technician in a genetics lab, Chrissy discovered Flash and Generator. At digitalorganism, she uses her experience to lead internal, private, and public education efforts. She also leads digitalorganism's development efforts by capitalizing on her extensive array of knowledge.