I’m proud to announce the launch of my new blog “I was a creative.” This blog is aimed at anyone in the creative field who manages other creatives. This site is for creative people who have grown up building websites and interactive but are now managing people and the creative direction. Once upon a time you launched Photoshop for your day job, now sadly it’s only about meetings. My goal with the site is to write a quality post once a week.

The Fleb framework looks like an interesting project. It sounds a lot like the Gia framework, but with dynamic multi-language support. Out of the box it also supports SEO and the back button. The documentation so far looks straight forward. This project is still in development but it looks very promising. So far at first blush it looks very “interactive designer friendly”, so I other words you don’t need a masters degree in AS3 to use the thing. We will keep an eye on this project.

A new blog (Flash CMS info) is out (details about who is behind it are sketchy as there is no contact info., and they used one of those “whois” privacy controls on the domain, this always makes it suspect in my opinion) But it seems to be a good resource for Flash CMS’s that are out there. Although it may turn into one big ad for a “paid” CMS of choice, these type sites often do that after they get decent traffic. (Not that I’m helping by linking too it!). But never the less a good place to start on your hunt for a CMS for Flash.

Sidebar: Got to love it, a site dedicated to Flash CMS’s … but using WordPress as the CMS. Once again, loads of talk about Flash CMS tools but no one wants to eat their own food! Hmmmmmmm!

Even though I have been using the ‘internets’ since the days of Mosaic and my 2400 baud modem things still never seem to amaze me. For instance, if you google the term “Open Source Flash CMS” it seems Google loves this site. Why I don’t know because my article on the topic is rather shallow, and it seems no many people have written about this topic, or the blogs they write on have low Google Rank. Needless to say I’ve decided to help the ‘internet’s along by providing a list of open source Flash CMS’s here. The list is short, but maybe this will help in your search …

A new Flash CMS has appeared on the scene: Flashmoto. Once again it is a Flash CMS that uses “Flash” as the main UI to edit Flash.  The interface of the CMS is very well polished. Dialog boxes are well labeled and it seems to have a easy enough user interface. I signed up for a beta and spent some time playing around. One test that I use for how easy a CMS is to use is the “Famous 5 minute Test” basically if I can’t get new pages created and edited in under 5 minutes the UI is not so good. How does Flashmoto perform in the “Famous 5 minute Test”? well, I could create new objects and edit existing things, but adding new pages seem to allude me. (Maybe it requires a smarter user than me!, and keep in mind this is very beta software!) The developer for the project has some great plans for the software. I’m told it will support deep linking, SEO and the back button may actually

OK, this is an oldie but a goodie. I wrote this book many moons ago. Thanx to FITC it is now a free sponsored ebook you can download. I get many emails from people asking advice about going freelance. This book is the answer, and hey you can’t beat the price =) So download your *FREE* copy today! (no strings attached, really!) And if you could as a favour link back to my site “airgid.com” on your blog if you like the book or find it useful in some way. Google link credit always helps.

Airgid Media Inc. is proud to announce the launch of our new book “CO2 and You: Teach young children how to reduce their eco-footprint“. The book features hand crafted (in 3D Studio Max and zBrush) 3D characters and a custom made puppet called “Leo”. Look for the companion animated short on DVD the end of 2009.

Over the past few weeks the stream of resumes filing my in-box has grown significantly. It is a sign of the times that many 9-5′ers have lost their jobs and are now trying their hand at freelance. For those among you who can not find work and have decided to do the freelance gig I have some advice for you. Since your probably so freaked out right now you probably don’t want to read alot here it is in small pieces…

The FlashBlog has a really great interview with the company that built all the futuristic interfaces for the various Star Trek ships. OOOii is the same company that brought the Minority Report UI to the silver screen as well. Of course all done in Flash!

” For Star Trek, senior developer Dave August created a complete ActionScript 3 framework for compositing and sequencing various effects that was used live on the set during filming. He also created an AIR application which was used for authoring the various sequences and also to control them as the actors manipulated them.” [via The Flash Blog ..]

Electric Rain – Swift 3D PS Plug-in for Photoshop looks to do a much better job of 3D than Photoshops own built in 3D interface (which I think sucks BTW). I’m a big fan of eRain products and this one seems to be very easy to use. Sadly it’s only for the PC so Mac users are out of luck. Now the marketing copy from erain.. Swift 3D PS is a fun and easy-to-use Photoshop plug-in that will have you exploring entirely new hemispheres of Photoshop CS4 Extended. It accomplishes simple 3D tasks in seconds with remarkable results and places your 3D text, extrusions or models back into Photoshop as 3D layers. These layers remain fully editable by Swift 3D PS, even after Photoshop’s array of layer styles and filters are applied. Swift 3D PS offers the same powerful capabilities of our standalone product, but works within the confines of the Photoshop environment.