Towards the end of summer, I started learning Adobe Flash from scratch and after two months of learning, I built and launched my first Flash Web site a week ago.

Here is a little background of my Web design skill level before I started: I have experiences in using Photoshop, Dreamweaver, HTML, CSS and have built two Web sites. So I’m familiar with Adobe’s interface and Web design and development, but never used Flash before.

I found a plenty of online tutorials that are extremely helpful. And I selected and organized them into my top 5 tutorials for the very beginners (like me) to build a Flash Web site.

1. Adobe Video Workshop Adobe itself is a great source for learning its products and this video inventory is great for beginners. Select “Flash” in the top left column, choose “getting started” in the top right column, and double click the videos in the center column and the learning begins.
2. Tutvid.com This site provides video tutorials for specific applications commonly used in Web design such as drop down menu and photo gallery.
3. Good-Tutorials This is a tutorial aggregator that organizes tutorials into various topics such as “Animation” and “Interactivity”.
4. Latest Videos This another tutorial aggregator focuses on video tutorials.
5. Flash My Mind If you want to dig into ActionScript 3.0, this site has comprehensive tutorials elaborating the AS 3.0. They are very well organized and easy to navigate step by step.

There are a lot more out there but this should be a great set to start with.

What is a secret? What would you rather keep to yourself? How much are you willing to negotiate for what you have kept hidden? How do you resolve to share it?
In the space of a 1-hour film and 9 hours of images shown back-to- back, 300 secrets of a most intimate or amusing, dramatic or childish nature are recalled and told by subjects who have willingly been drawn into the game of selling secrets. Collected and traded in an installation realized in Switzerland and France, they show us a snapshot of our own doubts, shames, mistakes and passing fancies.

Secrets For Sale (64min. - 2003) by Elodie Pong

Secrets For Sale is the film which reveals the radical ADN/ARN (Any Deal Now / Any Reality Now) experience.

ADN/ARN was an interactive installation addressed to one person at the time, in which each visitor was invited to confide and then contractually sell (anonymously on demand) a personal secret.

The installation was composed of four units: the waiting room, the preparation sieve, the studio and the cabinet.

The visitor/actor followed the protocol of the system under the scrutiny of eight surveillance cameras.

In the cabinet unit, after the recording, Elodie Pong stepped in as a performer, negotiating the price of the secret according to her interest in adding it to her collection http://www.boxproductions.ch/secrets/blog/index.php.

Email contact:
info@elodiepong.net

DVD distribution via Videocompany.ch

When we created our first idea of EndlessRoom, it was to liberate art. We saw a major problem with the current system. At first we wanted to “Bring Down the Man!” aka the Galleries, but then realized that it is NOT an zero sum game and that the galleries DO play an intricate role in the promotion of art. And that we can never replace the experience of seeing art in the physical space - as long as it is free….

My favorite poet Saul Williams recently jumped on this train of avoiding the middle man or labels first done by Radiohead to free it on the web. Saul is a mastermind with words and he describes the current trend that art is moving down . . . He could not of summed the feelings of why we created these platforms any better. The following is his manifesto for “The Rise and Fall of Niggy Tardust”

“My Dearest Friends and Fans,

It is my greatest honor to present to you The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, my new album produced by Trent Reznor and mixed by Alan Moulder. The wall of sound that we’ve created is tagged with such graffiti that a passerby would seek out doors and ways to ENTER. Once inside a world defined by dreams come true they’d find aligned with the simplest act of sharing what we treasure. Most people aren’t aware of the world of art and commerce where exploitation strips each artist down to nigger. Each label, like apartheid, multiplies us by our divide and whips us ’til we conform to lesser figures. What falls between the cracks is a pile of records stacked to the heights of talents hidden from the sun. Yet the energy they put into popularizing smut makes a star of a shiny polished gun. The ballot or the bullet for Mohawk or the mullet is a choice between new times and dying days. And the only way to choose is to jump ship from old truths and trust dolphins as we swim through changing ways. The ways of middlemen proves to be just a passing trend. We need no priests to talk to God. No phone to call her. And when you click the link below, i think it fair that you should know that your purchase will make middlemen much poorer . . .“