I've just spent the last few days reading a book called "Good News for a Change: How Everyday People are Helping the planet". If you happen to be a bit of an environmentalist and/or are feeling a little down and wondering what good could be happening in this world then this is the book for you. I actually found it quite inspiring just due to the fact that there is so much out there that is amazingly happening and the news on TV/Radio/Internet just doesn't ever cover it. If it doesn't have an ambulance in it or some kind of news on profits then the media outlets just don't seem to care.
Anyways, this book will take you around the world and talk about the really cool and amazing projects that are going on that are unbelievably turning back the clock on the rampant destruction that has been going on with this planet. There are a lot of people who are helping to make this place a better place to live and succeeding at that! Makes me want to get out there and help out. So, I probably will.
The book also talks about some of the world factors that are involved and I have to say that together with a few other books I've read through, the world is actually starting to make a bit more sense now. Not that much of it is good sense, but the pieces are coming together in a much broader way than I thought.
Anyways, sorry for the off topic post but I really feel that this book is something that others should be aware of if not already. Keeping in mind the book is a few years old, I would think that quite a few people are already aware of it and have read it, but I didn't know until just lately.. so maybe there are others too. The book can be found here if you need a reference to it to pick it up at your local book store or something. Maybe just buy off of Amazon, seems to be cheaper.
Well, with a little searching around I've got more info on FMS3. I knew I had read about some more info somewhere but just couldn't recall it when writing the last post.
Anyways, here's an informative PDF on the issue straight from Adobe. Along with an HTML version of all kinds of FAQ stuff on FMS3 (kinda like the PDF) and the press release is here.
The information is about 3 months old though... good for me to be right up on the times..
Anyways, I'd have to say that the most exciting features in there for me are:
- Server-side republish (even though you can kinda do this now, it's commonly requested)
- H.264 and AAC streaming support (going to be nice to get away from FLV's)
Speaking of that though, have you seen this post by Tinic about the new file types coming out? Neat.
- Improved performance (although I did mention this in the last post, I'm really happy about this)
- Mobile video delivery to Flash Lite 3 (this is very cool, looking forward to playing with this)
Delivery in the first quarter of next year? Sounds good, looking forward to it.
On a side note, if any of you have been visiting the newly released fmsguru.com site and tried the video tutorials and they all seem to be the same one.. I've fixed that problem now. They should all work as expected. Sorry for the glitch.
I'm kind of curious as to what others are thinking about the new version of Flash Media Server that should be coming out soon (I hope). Here is a bit of information via Kevin Towes (have to scroll down and click the "protecting and distributing content with FMS3").
There is some good info in there on some new features and I'm sure more will leak out soon (can't imagine they were all in that one preso). Looking forward to seeing those, and of course as soon as I find them I'll post here just in case.
But either way, I think I'm definitely looking forward to some changes. Here are a few of my requests:
- Better licensing scheme
- Better pricing to go with that better licensing scheme
- Multicasting
- Better performance (which they say they have done)
- Screensharing would be really nice, but that's a flash player issue..
- Not sure if I care too much about DRM.. but lot's of others do. So having it and knowing about it is good for business
- Did I mention pricing and licensing changes?? ah yes.. I did
- AS2 or even AS3 on the server side. Prototyping everything is getting like working on something antiquified.. like a commodore 64 or something. Not too efficient or clean sometimes
hrmm.. lots of others I'm sure but I'm more curious as to what others have taken out of that presentation by Kevin and what they would like to see further change with FMS.
Right now demand for FMS is good, I'm never ever out of work and most of the other FMS devs out there that I know are booked up for months with stuff. It's crazy. But at the same time there isn't a high demand for FMS stuff thanks to the lack of information about FMS and how to develop for it, which makes for a bit of a steep learning curve to get in, and then the licensing and pricing for it right now. For information, there is of course flashcomguru, my blog, fczone, the newly released fmsguru.com and a few others (sorry if I don't recall them off the top of my head, stick them in the comments if you know of any and I'll update this post)... I guess there is also Adobe's site, but that's a given.
If you were to compare the Coldfusion community, or Flash community or Photoshop or After Effects community, FMS community is pretty slow. The mailing list that Stefan runs off of flashcomguru is almost non existant lately. New people just aren't getting into it lately. Makes me wonder.
But, I'm all for seeing FMS apps get developed and for more FMS developers to come out and show their stuff. I still feel (even though the entry point is high) that FMS has huge potential, it's just that Adobe needs to put a bit more muscle behind it. Hopefully FMS3 will see that muscle and a big push will be made to get it out into the public much more.
Anyways, any thoughts on the above would be great. Please post in the comments.
I've been getting a few questions about developing for Flash Media Server with Flex. I sometimes am not too sure if it's for Flex 2 or Flex 3 so I'm going to just quickly post a quick tip if any of you are using Flex 3 beta at all.
When it comes to developing server side, it can be a bit of pain if you don't happen to have the API memorized because no editors that Macromedia (did) or Adobe (does) put out have the ability to understand ANY of the API's for either client or server side. I think dreamweaver has a bit and the Flash IDE has a little.. but not nearly enough.
To help with that there is a plugin for Flex 3 by Darren at FCZone. This is brilliant. What it does is allow you to create FMS application projects and then it helps with code hinting etc when you go to develop those apps. Definitely check it out if you are using Flex 3 at all and do some or lots of server side coding. Then again, if you do lots of coding then this might not help too much, but I know for sure that I have to refer to the livedocs every once in a while because I still use Sepy for my server side stuff.
Anyways, about the Flex and AS3 questions, I'll do my best to get some answers up soon. Just been a bit busy with some projects here.