I know this is all so simple but it’s something I use on a daily basis and I thought why not pass it onto you guys!

Download the zip bellow and extract it, you will get a file called “Notes.swf” and all you need to do is drop it into one of the following folders based on your flavor of operating system and version of Flash -

Windows Vista or Newer – C:\Users\[Your User Name]\AppData\Local\Adobe\Flash CS[x]\en_US\Configuration\WindowSWF
Windows XP or Older – C:\Documents & Settings\[Your User Name]\AppData\Local\Adobe\Flash CS[x]\en_US\Configuration\WindowSWF
Mac OSX - User\Library\Application Support\Adobe\Flash CS[x]\en\Configuration\WindowSWF

Alternatively if you’re using Windows you can just download the file in an installer and just let it find the files itself!

It’s that time again an array of events are on their way one of the most notable is the infamous Flash on the Beach which takes place in Brighton in September. Always promising a great line up and always delivering, this year’s event website is now live with a great selection of confirmed speakers already.

The organisers have even thrown in a couple of extra workshops this year which I am sure everyone will be racing to book when the tickets go on sale next week. The event will last three days and will have two undoubtedly awesome parties, hope to see you there!

[Hit the website for more details]

I love twitter but not a day passes by where I don’t see a ‘Flash Killer’ tweet or article. Flash users fight for Flash and accessibility enthusiasts fight for HTML5. Why has nobody stopped to think that all these platforms can co-exist?

HTML5 is great I’ll give it that and anything it can be used for I believe it should when the time is right. We have to face the reality that HTML5 cannot do as much as Flash can technically, both platforms have their strong points and weaknesses. People consider the Flash Platform to be taxing on computer performance, I argue that this is not true, the content that Flash designers work on are typically very rich and complicated media, this media would be taxing in any format. I have seen some awesome HTML5 demos and it’s capability has been outstanding however it is no better than Flash in its capabilities and as far as I’m concerned for many years coming more people will have the Flash player plug-in than those who have HTML5 capable browsers.

When you enter the mobile sector though the debate is even stronger, most of the new mobile platforms at the moment support Flash and HTML5, except for the iPhone. The debate on performance and accessibility these platforms is a hot topic at the moment and I believe that people need to calm down and let the platforms co-exist with one another to make a more dynamic and richer internet experience. Also don’t get me started on Unity!

[Drop Your Thoughts In The Comments]

There is no doubt some awesome stuff come out of Microsoft’s Research and Development department but when it comes to handling data and organisation Microsoft falls short against Google and Apple. But as we can see from the video below their new data organisation engine looks like it could be a real game changer. This sort of technology is great at finding what information you want and cross referencing it with other information, I can see this being a real game changer for Wikipedia. This sort of application is very dynamic and could be incorporated as a web app allowing live information to be accessed anywhere in the world with automatic cross referencing. You can download the application today on Windows here.

[Hit The More Link For The TED Talk]

Some of you may have noticed a lack of posts recently, that’s because I’ve been busy with my latest project – Flash User Group UK.

That’s right, it’s finally set up and ready to go with the first meeting planned for mid April, I hope to see some of you guys there the ones who can’t make it we will be throwing the footage of the event onto the groups website. As any new group we need as much support as you can so can you e-mail, tweet and shout about it as much as possible.

[Hit the Flash User Group UK's Website for more details]

Flash has received some well deserved criticism over the last year in regards to its performance. I have found that its image in the web design community has become damaged for many reasons that are not relevant to today’s player. Adobe and developers of the platform have made some mass yet unappreciated improvements to the player over the last few.

Search Engine Optimization today is not such of an issue if you build the site well and also deep link it. Even accessibility isn’t a huge issue with great tools available to make your content text to speech friendly. But what Flash is really getting criticized for is performance.

Fortunately Adobe was quick on the ball to resolve the problems, but in turn they expect device manufactures to play ball and work with them in the process. Google have recently brought out the Nexus One which is a Flash Player 10.1 capable phone. Google worked closely with Adobe to ensure that the player ran great on the system and from what I have seen so far it looks awesome. Flash Player 10.1 brings huge advancements in performance especially on the mobile platform and in delivering HD content, such a huge progress should warrant it its very own version number ‘Flash Player 11′. Adobe has proved time and time again since Adobe Max 2009 that Flash is ready for the mobile platform and have added Flash support to many awesome powerful phones supporting full Flash Player with accelerometer and multi-touch support. This I call progress.

So why no Flash love for the iPhone?

Apple are greedy, and they want revenue, if you could jump onto hulu to watch a video why would you buy video from iTunes. I agree this is just business sense but with the iPad people really thought that they can’t use the same old excuse again that it runs too slowly, but Jobs pulled out that card again. The people want Flash and Apple have received some serious bad press from the lack of it.

People say that Flash Player is inaccessible, but I ask you which is more inaccessible the 99.9% of internet enabled computers with Flash Player or the percent of people with HTML5 capable browsers.

Flash isn’t the processer hungry application it used to be, both Adobe and developers of the Flash platform are learning that keeping their code optimized will go a long way into keeping the platform alive.

I’ve been playing around with BitmapData and Webcams for the last few days for an Interactive Pool Table that I am working on. Today I got side tracked, after visiting Decode at London’s V&A museum I felt as though my programing is becoming more art orientated by the day. It’s not much and it’s very simple but here’s what I’ve been playing with today. Simple but fun!

I was fortunate enough to have recently gone to the Victoria and Albert Museums conference Decoding the Digital. Decoding the digital was a conference that discussed new media’s place in the art based community and the issues and controversy of digital based art. Casey Reas was one of the great artists there and has work featured in the Decode exhibition at London’s V&A as well as around the world. Caseys work is about processing data to create beautiful pieces of work. In 2001 Casey and Ben Fry created a tool called Processing, this tool allowed them to create wonderful graphics such as the one seen above. Fortunately for you all I recorded Casey Reas’ talk on ‘Form+Code’. If you get the chance visit Decode and Digital Pioneers at London’s V&A.

Another key note another Apple device! Today’s keynote featured the iPad, Jobs latest and greatest creation… well at least latest! Disappointingly the iPad will not run Flash Player all we can do is hope Adobe do some tweaking here and there to get Native apps running on this baby! But what have they done?

The Device
The device has an awesome 9.7 inch IPS screen at 1024×768. It comes in 16, 32 and 64 GB flavours and has the option of 3G. It sports an accelerometer, 1GHZ Apple A4 processor and 802.11n wi-fi allong with all the other stuff like compass and bluetooth. Ohh yeah and it has a 10 hour (real use) battery life.

The Software
As expected it runs a variation of iPhone OS. What this means is it supports all iPhone apps out the box. The SDK will allow people to develop for the iPad specifically so we can see some really awesome apps come onto the app store when this gets released. It also has iWork which takes the full iWork sweet and has re-interfaced it to the iPad and to be honest looks pretty sweet!

What else?
Something I was happy to see was the new dock keyboard which holds the iPad in place as well as charges it. It also has video out for presenting iWork on projectors and will come unlocked to any network anywhere.

When?
iPad ships with Wi-fi only in 60 days and with Wi-fi+3G in 90 days internationally. 3G plans will take longer to arrange outside of the US.

I guess I’ll get this… when it gets jailbroke!

[Hit The Gallery Here]

Thanks to the wonderful world of Twitter I have stumbled upon a great tool called Project Sikuli. Sikuli allows you to automate GUI based scripts by applying Python combined with screen shots. I have found this to be an exceptional tool as your delays can be set to when a visual element occurs rather than a static number. I have used Sikuli to open my Chaos based generative art installation and close it when the UI gets too complicated, this process is repeated making sure that the canvas is kept clean and at a high frame rate. The reason I could not do this via AppleScript was because I wanted the installation to run for as long as possible and due to the nature of Chaos this varied from run to run. All I can say is what a great tool with many uses and beta testing user interface. Best thing is you can grab it an any flavour of OS!