Right now I'm working on a pretty cool application that is going to use Flash Remoting as the primary means of communication between Flash and a database. The application is running on a ColdFusion server, so Flash Remoting seemed like the obvious choice for a dynamic Flash based solution.

The only problem was that the client was not certain if Flash Remoting had been disabled or was even available. Even though it is available from ColdFusion by default, some web hosts have been known to disable it and then charge extra for turning it back on (the snakes!).

I wanted to test for Remoting capabilities so I whipped together a file and sure enough Remoting was up and running! Whoo-hoo!

Here is an example of the Remoting tester that I built:

You need to upgrade your Flash Player or turn on Javascript or
bypass the detection if you wish.

I've also made all the Flash Remoting Sample files available for download.

Downlad the Flash Remoting Sample Files

I use SWFObject to add Flash elements to any given page that I work on containing Flash elements. SWFObject is one of the most elegant ways of handling Flash content. It uses a single div with basic CSS and a slim JavaScript file to:

• determine if the user has Flash and if so, which version they are running
• upgrade the user’s version of Flash with ExpressInstall (optional)
• quickly pass in external variables (from your page) to your Flash file.
• easily configure requirements, and if the user has Flash (or was just upgraded) the Flash content is displayed; otherwise, alternate text or images are used.

To pass variables into a Flash file using SWFObject you add the following line of code to your SWFObject javascript block:

soFlash.addVariable("msg", "this data came from an external source");

Now that a variable has been passed in via SWFObject, we can access it in Flash using ActionScript 3. If you’ve just started your first ActionScript 3 project (or you're porting over AS2 code to AS3) and you’re scratching your head as to why your FlashVars are now undefined in the _root, it’s because they don’t live there anymore (in fact _root no longer exists! It is now just root without a leading underscore _).

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Today I had the absolute pleasure of meeting with Galveston.com, which is most definitely one of the hippest, bleeding-edge tourism sites that I have ever surfed upon.

Not only do they have daily streaming Flash video weather updates, but they also have podcasts and maps of Galveston for your iPod.

They also shoot quite a bit of video around Galveston and they're doing it all in HD! YES! After the shoot, they're pumping the video into their podcasts, Flash Video Player and (are you ready for this) Second Life! How awesome is that?

My MMORPG experience is fairly limited to WoW but after seeing the world they've constructed (it looks just like Galveston!), I'm seriously considering making the switch to see what life is like as a Second Life citizen.

If you have some time, I would definitely recommend spending some time to check out the site and see all this cool stuff!

Today I became convinced that RSS is one of the greatest technologies that may never be.

For someone who might not be familiar with the concept of RSS feeds, they basically break down like this. Think of a single page on the internet as being nothing more than: a name (title), location (url), and content.

So, when sites constantly generate new pages, such as:

• a news article
• an item on ebay
• a missed connection on Craigslist

you may want to stay up to date on that info. That is to say, you want to know the new page name, location and content.

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