Just went live with a new “micro-site” for Best Buy’s True Stories ad campaign. Feel free to check it out at www.bestbuytruestories.com. Lots of fun ads to check out - more to come!

Hi all. Just added three new files to my FlashDen profile (yes, I know it’s been a while since I’ve done anything on there). They’re all simple time-savers which hopefully makes people’s lives a bit easier. The more significant accomplishment, however, is that they are all AS3 - which I’m now becoming increasingly comfortable with. So without further ado:

	MD AS3 Accordion Viewer A simple accordion viewer that’s XML and CSS driven. Completely resizable and easy to modify (at least in my opinion). I find these useful when having to present multiple items in a small area.
	MD Slider I have used this file (or a similar iteration of it) so many times in my work, with such good results, that I figured why not just package it up and put it up! It’s a simple way of presenting multiple images in a given area.
	AS3 Video Player The hardest one to build by far is this fully AS3 Video Player, built from the ground up and thoroughly tested on PC and Mac! The kicker to this one is that it uses a simple configuration object to work, which can be passed via FlashVars or set up directly inside Flash. I’m most proud of this one.

So that’s what I have for now, but I’ve been toying with some other ideas. I’ll keep ya posted. Oh yeah, and Happy Earth Day!

Looks like Adobe is getting ready to announce new integration of Microsoft’s Silverlight into their Flash player. Crazy!

Wonder where this one’s going to end up. :-/

[update]: Heh. Well, that was obviously my lame attempt at an April Fool’s joke. Ignore me.

This is a good post on the basics of trademarks by Linda Joy Kattwinkel (via AIGA CPM). There is a marked difference between copyrights and trademarks, and all designers should be well aware of the implications of each.

From the article:

“Unlike copyright, ownership of a trademark is not about who created the mark. Trademark rights are created by using the trademark for goods and services in commerce. So when you create a logo for a client, your client will own trademark rights in that logo as soon as she starts using the logo on products or promotions for her company.”

Also, if you’re researching available trademarks, be sure to check out the Trademark Electronic Search System (lovingly referred to as TESS).

I think it’s safe to say that Apple’s iPhone has taken the smartphone market by storm. In a recent report issued by iSupply, analysts predict (at worst) a 16% growth in the smartphone market segment for 2009. When you consider that 2008 moved over 173 million smartphones, you can see why many companies want a piece of that pie. With Apple claiming 8% market share in the smartphone market, it’s still trailing behind Nokia and RIM. Last year alone, however, iPhone sales were up 245%! Not bad for being a relative newcomer.

That’s a lot of numbers up there, but it all boils down to one thing: the iPhone is juicy with opportunity. Which means that many folks out there want to play in the sandbox. Including yours truly. But where do you start? Particularly if you have no previous knowledge of the C language? Or Object Oriented Programming for that matter?!

Now, I don’t claim to know how to develop for the iPhone…yet. But these are things and resources I have found so far:
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