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Adobe have released the latest version of the Flash plug-in, version 9.0.124.0. I blogged about the reasons for this release previously, but it’ll mostly affect older Flash content played out through the latest player. See the updated posting on Adobe’s site for detailed information.

Slightly more worrying is Grant Skinner’s latest blog post which outlines some of the performance issues and existing security holes in all versions of the Flash 9 plug-in relating to unloading content. I can appreciate that the jump to ActionScript 3 was a big one for the Adobe team but it’s left me wishing for Flash 10 to be released sooner rather than later, although considering there’s been large functionality jumps in some minor versions of the Flash 9 plug-in I wouldn’t mind some of Grant’s suggested workarounds making their way into a minor version of Flash 9.

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m too used to things working out-of-the-box when it comes to applications. Maybe it’s because I’m on a Mac (at home). Maybe I’m a bit slow (a distinct possibility).

Today I tried to get a combination of Eclipse and FDT working, after two very clever ex-colleagues of mine highly recommended it as a better alternative to Flex Builder. After going for the PHP flavour of Eclipse on recommendation, I installed FDT through the Software Updates option within Eclipse. On restart I was prompted with memory warnings; that I needed to assign more memory to Eclipse. I thought this was a bit strange, as I was used to doing this years ago on Mac OS9 but hadn’t come across it so far on OS X. Anyways, I managed to sort this issue but then compiling my Hello World test required the Flex SDK being targeted. No biggie, but needed to tackle workarounds involving playerglobal.swc on the Mac. Eventually I published my swf from ActionScript.

Decided to try and publish some MXML. Learned that FDT seemingly doesn’t support it yet but that it’s coming soon. So, right now I’m in this kinda vague no mans land where I think I know I should kinda be checking out FDT, but I don’t appreciate why it’s so good and the workflow process that might be entailed with using it (especially if you’re also having to deal with MXML).

I’ll hopefully update this again once I’ve made further inroads into the process, but after day one checking it out I’m not sold yet. Is it better than working in Flex Builder 3 and/or Flash?

P.S. Hello Adam and Joe! Not THE Adam and Joe, although they are pretty funny themselves.

Apparently. Just get on with it people…

Apple have updated Safari to version 3.1 to include support for a lot of cutting-edge technology (including client-side database storage), along with adding a native developer dropdown (enabled within the preferences section). With Firefox 3, Opera 9.5 coming soon and, erm, IE8, it’s looking like the browser market is about to make web developer’s lives a lot more interesting soon.

By “interesting” I of course mean more difficult!

P.S. Visit this page in Safari 3.1 to see some funky CSS animation. Coo!

The new SWFObject is out. There are two main ways to embed Flash content on a page, with Option 2 sounding like the best fit for the rules/regulations we have to adhere to for work (progressive enhancement, no click-to-activate rubbish in IE, you HAVE to have JS to view the Flash, etc). Option 2 follows a similar method to SWFObject 1.5 as well.

Will have to look into the documentation in detail and try out some examples on a range of browsers if I have the time…

Adobe have posted an article informing those in the Flash community that there’s a security update coming next month, and advised developers to subscribe to their security notification service.

Most of it seems to affect socket behaviour, which I unfortuately haven’t had much experience with so far (except for pottering around with SmartFoxServer at home and multiplayer tile-based game mockups), but looks like some older swfs (Flash 7 and below) played out in the new player may experience issues.

It seems Flash isn’t coming to the iPhone or the iPod Touch. Boo Steve Jobs.

I love my MacBook and am very glad I’ve largely moved over from Windows, but the keyboard freeze on the keyboard when the computer has been idol for a few minutes is very annoying. It doesn’t occur when I’ve an external keyboard plugged into the machine. Hopefully after I get the change to apply this update the built-in keyboard will play nice too.

New/repurposed learning resource up on Adobe’s site now.

Official version over at Adobe located at http://www.adobe.com/go/playerversion/, and an Aral Balkan (better) alternative at http://playerversion.com/