MetaFilter posts tagged with macromedia

I Brought You Some Coffee! Is It ... Boiling Hot?

MikeHarris — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:39:52 -0800

On a Friday in the waning months of the 20th century, a Macromedia employee was getting ready to meet with the creator of Beavis & Butthead the next Monday to demonstrate Flash v.4's new feature, synchronized audio tracks – a feature he needed to learn over the weekend. So he put together the simplest model he could: a floating skull sans lips, tongue or physique. The meeting was postponed, so the employee continued to spitshine the animation and put it on his website. His friends e-mailed their friends, and soon, everyone met a heavy-metal animated floating skull demon and his adorable little devil pal. Sparks had created Radiskull, who will kill you one by one. (Atom) Nowadays, one can throw a rock and hit about 40,000 web cartoons. However, Radiskull and Devil Doll was one of the very first web cartoons out there, and is still considered one of the best by many nostalgic Internet "old-timers." As Sparks introduces the character in the Radiskull book later released (yes, there was a book, as well as three issues (1, 2, 3) of a comic), Radiskull – a portmanteau of "radical" and "skull" – is "a huge disembodied skull with glowing eyes, thick black eyebrows, a mouth full of long, sharp teeth, and a spiky purple Mohican that magically always seems to be side-on. He's got a taste for boiling coffee, refers to himself in the third person, likes pain, and dreams of ripping up small towns with his mighty jaws. Since he's just a skull, he moves around by levitation, which he finds extremely tiring. That means he needs a lot of sleep." As for his little red-suited pal, "Devil Doll is short and bubbly, with a cute grin, button eyes, a big yellow head, and horns. He's enthusiastic and outgoing, grins compulsively at the thought of mayhem, and rides a growling Harley-Davidson. He can breath fire – and fireworks – and he's a cool dancer. He's got lots of energy, and can never get enough of rocking and rapping with Radiskull." The initial episode, wildly popular (and noticed on Metafilter), soon had its follow-ups:

Hella Weenie (Atom), in which the pair bring justice to a Ned Flanders-esque neighbor with a cruel streak;
Radiskull Hate Snow (Atom), in which Devil Doll and Candy Angel first meet (Mefi);
Love 'n' Stuff (Atom), in which the pair independently pine after each other in Hades Minor and Heaven Academy #999, respectively (Mefi);
Angel This is Wrong (Atom), in which Candy navigates from Heaven into the ether in-between the universes, warned off by the Rappin' Dishonorable Judge Radiskull;
Wicked Nikki (Atom), in which Nikki the Succubus attempts to corrupt Devil Doll and Candy finds Hades locked tight;
Radiskull's Cave (Atom), in which Devil Doll tries to make his buddy okay with his angelic crush; and
Candy in Hell (Atom), the last produced episode of the series, in which Nikki learns that marshmallows and cotton candy aren't to be taken for granted, but manages to get in one last act of malice.

The series ended up having a hugely creative fan base. A.V. Phibes' "I was a Teenage (Give or Take 8 Years) Radiskull & Devil Doll Addict" is one of the more amusing, but there were also handmade dolls, cosplay, remixes, artwork, and tattoos. The series had a sad end in real life: when dot-coms crashed, Macromedia laid Sparks off in the summer of 2001 along with almost the entire staff of AtomShockwave at the time – but, as Radiskull and Devil Doll was created by Sparks while Senior Designer there, the company owned the copyright to Radiskull and Devil Doll – and proved spectacularly unwilling to work with Sparks on somehow releasing to or cooperating with him in continuing the series, or even getting out the partially completed ninth episode, "Hot Date." USA Today briefly touched upon Sparks' story in a 2002 news story. (In fact, Sparks receives no money even from the book, unless you buy it at his site and he gets the small Amazon referral fee.) Sparks released a music video preview for what was supposed to be his next endeavour, Dickie & Jackie, but nothing else was seen of the series. Sparks had a brief flurry of activity on three online repositories at the beginning of this year – Post-It Note Art by Joe Sparks, his blog, and Sparkmical – but none have been updated since February 2009. Fans interested in the back end of things might be interested in Sparks' production notes for Episodes 1 & 2 and Episode 3, as well as some notes on how he works. Now, ahem, it's time to kick it with some Sparks-supplied Radiskull and Devil Doll MP3 jams (YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!):

"I Am the Radiskull, I Will Kill You One By One",
"Very Bad",
"We Roll and Rock",
"Candy Candy Baby",
"Angel, This is Wrong",
"Bring On the Pain!",
"Rock Heart", and
"Gift from God".

(For some retro nostalgia, check out the "preloading notes" before each video, in which you're told to avoid 8-bit color if possible!)

Microsoft Expression

thisisdrew — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 06:39:17 -0800

Designing With Microsoft? Evidently this is Microsoft's attempt at competition with 'Macrodobe', the strange, hybrid beast (lumbering?) that is the combined Macromedia/Adobe merger. Microsoft has launched a full suite of products taking aim at Dreamweaver, (is it better?) Illustrator-Photoshop and Flash. For many designers who pretend to be developers (or vica versa) Microsoft's new "Expression" will be 3 or 4 orders of magnitude less relevant than that old Corel Suite. The central issue seems to be one of credibility: Can Microsoft escape the seemingly permanent "FrontPage" stigma, not to mention even more recent design community letdowns?

Open Source Flash

Tlogmer — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 20:08:20 -0800

Open Source Flash

Adobe to buy Macromedia

jonknee — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 01:03:11 -0800

Adobe to buy Macromedia I almost choked when I saw this press release, Adobe is going to buy out Macromedia for $3.4 billion in stock. Adobe is paying about $9 over the current share price, which means the investors will make out nicely. With the two largest design software companies becoming one, the new Adobe will be a monopoly (if it isn't already with Photoshop). I just hope they remove the ability to make really annoying Flash movies...

What software version numbers really mean

jeremias — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 07:14:58 -0800

What software version numbers really mean. Not sure who started the latest trend of dropping version numbers from software. We could always blame Microsoft with Windows ME . But Macromedia is at fault too with the whole MX thing. And MX doesn't even stand for anything. Now Adobe is getting into the mix. There will be no Photoshop 8 or Illustrator 11. Just CS . So is this a good thing? Version numbers may not be exciting but it sure did make it easy to keep track of the latest upgrade.

Get Your Flash On

Down10 — Wed, 10 Sep 2003 00:05:19 -0800

Macromedia Flash Player 7 for your Web browser is now available for a platform near you. ...Upgrade at your own discretion.

The Right to Flash Petition

hobbes — Mon, 21 Jul 2003 09:52:22 -0800

The Right to Flash is an online petition for Macromedia to properly support Arabic and Hebrew languages which read from right-to-left.

Not so Flashy

MediaMan — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 18:41:33 -0800

Users don't like a lot of Flash - Looks like Macromedia's new Web site redesign that utilizes all Flash for its navigation isn't winning any awards with users, especially those running Opera and Apple's Safari browsers. It's nice looking, but I prefer a simpler design like here MetaFilter.

Fabulon7 — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 08:19:30 -0800

Gallery of neat Flash experiments--soon to include source code. I like this one, and the portrait of his dad is creepy. Also on the site, a gallery of free images.

banished — Fri, 03 May 2002 02:22:56 -0800

Adobe has won 2.8 million from Macromedia for "patent infringements." Apparently Macromedia may be forced to pull Flash MX from their product line. As an avid Flash-developer I am personally affected. Is there something that we can do about this?

boardman — Mon, 29 Apr 2002 04:34:17 -0800

What does MX stand for? It doesn't say, but Macromedia, launched a huge new strategy today to integrate all of its software properties. Very smart, and perhaps too late?

Su — Wed, 03 Apr 2002 13:20:15 -0800

Ever since installing the latest version of the Flash Player, I've been having problems with the sound continuing if I exit the movie, or close the browser window, until I completely kill the program by closing ALL open browser windows. Well, the problem has been formally acknowledged, though Macromedia is being weird about doing something about it.

ludicdruid — Mon, 04 Mar 2002 07:15:52 -0800

Flash MX unveiled. Here are the top 10 new features.

MintSauce — Fri, 01 Feb 2002 08:07:39 -0800

Flash Player 6 Beta .... need I say more.

kirkaracha — Fri, 19 Oct 2001 22:09:52 -0800

Macromedia claims it owns Adobe patent "Software-maker Macromedia Inc. is claiming it owns the patent to Adobe Systems Inc.'s popular Photoshop program, according to a suit filed in federal court Friday." Macromedia is alleging that in 1998 it patented technology used by Photoshop. Couldn't this only be web-based technology, since Photoshop was around long before 1998?

yarf — Wed, 29 Aug 2001 07:59:49 -0800

Rude Software Installation I clicked on a link that needed Shockwave 8.5 installed. Silly me, I said okay. After the download, the installation program nicely closed all of my open IE windows without first asking, creating a splendid loss of work for me!! Thanks Macromedia!! I'm now going to be on the lookout... What other software programs act rudely, creating defaults, shutting down your browser windows, or assigning themselves to extensions without first asking?

Cavatica — Thu, 18 Jan 2001 17:17:11 -0800

Macromedia and Alliaire to Merge.... Linking the power of Coldfusion, Homesite, along with Dreamweaver and Fireworks. Seems interesting.

gluechunk — Tue, 16 Jan 2001 14:21:39 -0800

Not as sexy as the AOL/Warner combo, but... Macromedia and Allaire to merge.

DragonBoy — Sun, 26 Nov 2000 22:07:41 -0800

Macromedia Purchases Clue
Looks like the folks at Macromedia have finally come around to the fact that Flash is getting a really bad usability rap. They have launched a token usability section on their site. I thought the four sites they picked as 'Usability examples' were very telling of their understanding of the issues. [via Flazoom]

hijinx — Thu, 28 Sep 2000 08:42:23 -0800

Macromedia to Adobe: "Oh yeah? Take that!" Macromedia counters Adobe's lawsuit with a few claims of its own.

captaincursor — Thu, 10 Aug 2000 15:50:29 -0800

Adobe sues Macromedia over infringement of their patented tabbed palettes.
"Adobe filed a lawsuit against Macromedia® alleging infringement of our intellectual property, specifically our patented tabbed palette, which is a key user interface element and method invented by Adobe and incorporated into our products."

wiremommy — Mon, 24 Jul 2000 11:53:11 -0800

Flash 5! Tasty and delectable new features including HTML TEXT! I can't wait!

Dean_Paxton — Thu, 15 Jun 2000 21:45:39 -0800

I got my copy of Dreamweaver UltraDev today, it shipped with a copy of Cold Fusion Enterprise Server and IBM Websphere Application Server (and yes, they snuck a site redesign in there too).

tranquileye — Wed, 10 May 2000 18:15:24 -0800

Is this cool? Or do I just want too much? A happy marriage between my geek self and my designer/writer self? Is it possible? Is Macromedia Dreamweaver Ultradev the answer?