A 3 Hour Tour or – What I Learned in Traffic School

Traffic School was actually fun. Only in Utah can you attend traffic school and have two people that you know directly, one person that you find is related to you and and the neighbor of your brother all attending the same class. One of the best parts is that I used WordPress to write this entire blog post on my PDA while in class. My only regret is that they didn’t have the video of the German convicts that volunteer to crash cars into trees and roll off of embankments. If anyone has knowledge of where to find this I would be much obliged.
So I picked up many great tidbits of information and thought that the world should know them. Here they are along with my comments:

  1. Cops have Photo Id when they pull up your drivers license. (So don’t lie about who you are or they will take you to jail.) Continue reading

My drop down menus are behind my Flash

Have you loaded up a Flash file and now your drop down menus are all a mess because they go behind your Flash instead of on top? Did you try changing the zIndex of your iFrame or try to put iFrames behind the menu to push it to the top? Does your drop down menu look like this?
wmodeBehind
But you wish it would look like this.
No wmode = transparent property
Well forget all the iFrame business and and feel relieved because all that is neccessary is to simply include the wmode parameter in your HTML. All you need is a little love and a simple tag and you should be fine.

To get started you should be using either swfObject or the Adobe AC_RunActiveContent.js to embed your Flash. I highly suggest the swfObject Flash Detection scripts because of how complete it is. swfObject combines Active content activation, Flash detection, Flash Express Install, and is search engine friendly.

Below you will find the wmode code for each method so that you can have menu systems like everyone else on the web.

Code – swfObject var so = new SWFObject("myFlashMovie.swf", "mymovie", "200", "100%", "7", "#336699");

so.addParam("wmode", "transparent");
so.addParam("salign", "t");
so.write("flashcontent");

Code – AC_RunActiveContent.js- AC_FL_RunContent(‘codebase’,’http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,19,0′,’width’,’550′,’height’,’400′,’align’,’middle’,’src’,’myFlashMovie’,’quality’,’high’,’name’,’myFlashMovie’,’pluginspage’,’http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer’,’movie’,’myFlashMovie’,’wmode’,’transparent’);

Make sure that you have an even number of parameters with the example above or it will break it.Other links about the issue:

Stephanie Sullivan article on Community MX

Interakt Online Article
http://menumachine.com/kb/65
http://www.actionscript.org/forums/archive/index.php3/t-101350.html

Utah Flash Design Talent

Flash Forward just finished. Although I had plans to be there, I wasn’t able to attend because of my job at DirectPointe. I started to notice how many people from Utah attended. It made me realize what a mecca Utah has become for Flash talent. The 2006 Austin Flash Forward was well represented by Utah Flashers. For starters Tyler Wright (of mediaRAIN) and Rob Taylor (of Strathus and www.FlashExtensions.com) spoke at the conference on Flash SEO and Browser communication.

We also had 2 Flash Foward Film Festival Finalists from Utah as well. Paul Mayne otherwise known as Pete, and Scott Stoddard. They both had phenomonal projects and both should have won. Scott Built an amazingly cool Flash game. I don’t know if I have seen one of this caliber on the web. Pete built a wonderful symbolic piece. His Flash Navigation and concepting is great. The project has an objective around helping people that are ill by lifting their spirits. Pete is great.

mediaRAIN, the best Flash Design in Utah, was just honored with another Macromedia/Adobe site of the Day

The List:

Tyler Wright – Lead Flash Developer mediaRAIN / musicRAIN , Flash Forward Conference Speaker
Rob Taylorwww.FlashExtensions.com, Flash Forward Conference Speaker
Scott StoddardSpiritonin.com, FlashThief.com Site of the year, Shockwave.com featured game, Flash Foward Film Festival Finalist
Paul MayneFlash Foward Film Festival Finalist
Matt MaxwellAdobe Site of the day
Pete HawkesAGIdeas Speaker in Australia, OgilvyOne Verge Exhibit in the Guggenheim and the CJM award for simplistic complexity
Jared Kroff/Adam DeVincent – 5 FITC Awards
Chase BrammerUtah Multimedia Arts Festival Winner and interactive Marketer for DirectPointe
Jake HiltonFlash Media Server Beta Team, writer of a Macromedia Developer Center Article
Ryan Simmons – Creator of Cartoon Solutions and StarWars Spoofs(the best place to get Flash Cartoon Character Animations) Dreamworks Animator, Numerous Animation Awards
Josh Buhler – Cofounder of Uflash.org and big time blogger
Kyle Follett – Folco.net (The only guy I know that can update his site constantly)
Bryce Barrand – mediaRAIN
Evan Ehat – Hey Evan what is your website?

Honorary Great Utahns:
Larry Lentz – Lead Flash Programmer at Air New Zealand (US) (Took my class and lived in Utah for many years)
Josh Dura – Flash Communications Server Applications Developer for Yahoo (From Utah)
Danny DuraDeveloper Relations Product Manager, Adobe, Inc. (From Utah)
Robert Penner – Lead Flash Programmer Adobe, Inc. (Contracted with mediaRAIN and spent much time in Utah including Rock Climbing)

I know that I forgot some people so I apologize in advance. Please, if I know and like you let me know who you are. If I know you and really respect you and your work I would be happy to put you on the list. If I don’t know you but you think I would like to then post a comment and let me know who you are. If you know someone that you feel is a great Utah Flasher, then please post a comment.
Thanks,

Curtis J. Morley