Preface

The phone rang just after I arrived at my office following a very uninteresting commute from the suburbs of Toronto. A familiar and friendly voice was on the other end. It was Linda. Linda is an acquisitions editor at New Riders Publishing. We had worked on a project together earlier that year.

After some light small talk, she cut to the chase, as she is prone to do. "Kevin," she said, "Would you be interested in writing a book?"

"A book," I said, all the while wondering what she thought I had to say to the world. "What about?" I have to admit I was intrigued.

" Tin Can, " Linda said excitedly. Now, Linda always sounds excited over the phone, but this time it was different. It was the kind of excitement that you couldn't say "no" to.

I thought about it that morning over an especially strong cup of coffee. Tin Can was the code name of the long anticipated release of Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX. I wasn't too worried about the technical challenge; I could handle that. I was more concerned about the book's approach and the challenges of introducing concepts that were so new.

Ok, I decided if I was going to write a book, I had to have some "story-telling" element to it.

And here is the result. I started this section with a traditional form of communication: an expressive story told using the written word. Now, my story-telling skills may need work, but the opening anecdote illustrates what this book is all about ” communication. This book is about building technology to help us communicate with each other in a more human way.

The problem with many software programs is that the talented engineers have focused on issues of technology and not human interface. Everyday we are forced to deal with amazing technology through poor user interfaces. The Flash Communication Server is a technology framework that abstracts connectivity and platform concerns to a level where developers don't have to be concerned about them any more.

This is not to say that the Flash Communication Server will solve human interface problems. It won't. It does, however, take care of some of the technical plumbing so that you can focus on how people will communicate. The Macromedia Flash MX authoring environment and Macromedia Dreamweaver MX are the integrated development environments (IDE) for creating Flash Communication Server Applications on the Mac and Windows platforms. These technologies are accessible to literally millions of developers, designers, animators, and engineers in every country and in every language. Plus, new techniques and an awesome collection of Flash UI components make it simple and quick to start working with the Communication Server.