http://www.FlashSim.com Articles, links, discussion, and code related to building simulations in Flash, with an emphasis on simulating devices. Written by the authors of "Flash MX for Interactive Simulation," Jonathan Kaye and David Castillo (November, 2002). en-us http://www.FlashSim.com/class/buildEquipSims.html I announced the three winners of the January Simulator Developer class, Tim Seeley, Craig Clark, and Grant Sherson. Tim and Craig won great prizes from MakingThings, and Grant won the mystery prize. Check out a snapshot of their projects... http://www.FlashSim.com/newsletter/v3n1.html I wanted to get out a newsletter before starting my online sim developer class, and so I decided to write a little more about the event recorder and playback component I made (and give it away to newsletter subscribers). I also talk about disabling the normal behavior of a simulator along paths that are not relevant to specific tasks. http://www.FlashSim.com/class/BuildEquipSims.html I finally finished putting together my 5-week online simulator developer classes, starting in January 2005 (and again in March 2005). The class will be project-oriented, and teach fundamentals of statecharts and other best practice methodologies for building equipment simulators. While it's not free, my intention is to make it within reach of most serious developers. As extra incentive, we'll be offering prizes from Making Things for the best simulators. I hope this will heat up the competition! http://flashsim.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=768608087&f=2576001945&m=90510716811&r=90510716811#90510716811 I've recently added a few new components to my equipment interface component set, including an event recorder that makes it easy to create wizards and other "show me" demonstrations (only for my components, though. You could extend it for the Macromedia components, but I haven't yet). http://flashsim.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=768608087&f=5356042211&m=75910509411&r=75910509411#75910509411 A few people at FlashForward last week asked me whether the components I built for the book and now updated for AS 2 were different from Macromedia's model for v2 components. The short answer is YES -- I distilled the differences into the following 5 points. http://flashsim.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=768608087&f=73810680411&m=93010668411&r=93010668411#93010668411 I just started an affiliate program on FlashSim for those with blogs and web sites who want to help me sell my instrumentation components and component skins. Affiliates receive the components for free, and 15% of any sale. I'm also really looking for designers who want to create skin sets (designers get the components and 50% of the purchase price when someone buys the skin set). http://flashsim.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=768608087&f=5356042211&m=70410328411&r=70410328411#70410328411 Thanks to all who attended my 'Ask the Experts' session at FlashForward last week. I hope you all got pumped up to create great simulations! I just posted my slides and some example movies, at http://www.FlashSim.com/FlashForward2004/. Please direct questions to the discussion board! http://flashsim.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=768608087&f=5356042211&m=80210296411&r=80210296411#80210296411 Making my way to New York for my session on Secrets of Successful Online Simulations (Ask the Experts). If you don't get a chance to come to my session, hopefully we can connect at the book signing afterwards! http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/breeze/articles/breezetips.html The article I wrote for the Breeze/RoboDemo DevNet Centers is now live! This discusses my experiences during the Breeze Live seminars I conducted in April. I also give introductory videos, tips, and checklists to being a Breeze presenter and being a Breeze participant. I set up a discussion board (see the last page) to handle subsequent questions... http://www.FlashSim.com/newsletter/v2n3.html#as2 I'm ready to release my revised instrumentation components for AS 2.0 (knobs, sliders, gauges, displays, etc.), as well as a new effort underway to create a catalog of skins. People who submit skins get the components for free, and get 50% of the sale when others buy the skin. http://www.FlashSim.com/newsletter/v2n3.html Brooke Kantor wrote a nice article for my newsletter about his experiences in building a Kodak C6330CX digital camera simulator. http://flashsim.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=768608087&f=5356042211&m=57110501411&r=57110501411#57110501411 I wonder how many other developers out there applied to speak at the upcoming MAX when it was announced, only to find out that the area in which one proposes a topic was limited to 25 characters! That was pretty extreme, and so I emailed Macromedia regarding this, but never received a response. You can't even spell out some of the products in 25 characters.