Director 11 is out!

The much anticipated Director 11 has just been released.

Here’s the product timeline from Wikipedia. Pretty nice track record. 23 years!

Product Timeline

• 1985 VideoWorks
• 1988 Named Director 1.0
• 1993 Macromind Director became Macromedia Director (v 3.1.3)
• 1993 Macromedia Director 4 was released
• 1996 Macromedia Director 5 was released
• 1997 Macromedia Director 6 was released
• 1997 Macromedia Director 6.5 was also released later that year
• November 16, 1998 Macromedia Director 7 was released
• 2000 Macromedia Director 8 was released
• 2001 Macromedia Director 8.5 was released (Shockwave3D)
• 2002 Macromedia Director MX was released
• January 5, 2004 Macromedia Director MX 2004 was released
• March 25, 2008 Adobe Director 11 (announced on February 19)

Spam filters while great are never 100% accurate. There is one technique that scammers use and is easily identifiable:
You receive an email that says that your account information needs to be updated and you need to click this link to solve the problem. While most companies never do this via email it seems that a lot of people will respond to this. It’s called the “phishing” technique. Most scams like this are easily spotted by identifying 4 sets of numbers right after the “http://” part of the link. It will look like this:
“http://555.555.555.555/accounts” or something similar.
The way this works is it allows the scammer to “dial a wrong number” to their own website that is a copy of the site in question. Most legitimate sites like will include their domain name in the address part itself.
The best way to avoid this in general is to not click on links sent to you via email unless you trust the source. If you need to update information at a site that you use log into the site the way you normally would and access it that way.
Wordpress movie plugin: adventure movie downloads

Parallax

Suppliers of the Basic Stamp micro controller. Excellent micro controller that can be used with Director through the Serial Xtra from Physical Bits to control hardware devices.

The U-505 Submarine

I recently spoke at a technolgy symposium at MSI (The Museum of Science and Industry) in Chicago. It’s an incredible museum. It is housed in the only in-place surviving building from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, the former Fine Arts Building. In their basement they have a U-boat that was captured at the end of World War II.

From the MSI website:

“The U-505 Submarine resurfaces in a 35,000-square-foot interactive exhibit that immerses guests in the sub’s compelling tale through dramatic representations, interactive challenges and nearly 200 artifacts.”

Happ

The standard in buttons and controllers.

These guys have everything. If you are looking for a hard to find piece of hardware for an exhibit, this is the place to go.

McMaster-Carr