Flash provides a great interface for customizable interactions, but with typical Flash development, it's cumbersome to edit content after publishing an application. For many Flash projects, updating content after the fact isn't important. But if you want to save data or update information in your Flash application, then you're going to want to look at having some sort external data source.

External data for a Flash application can be accomplished by simply having the flash application read cookies or text files on your web server. This bare-bones approach is appropriate for some, but such an approach is pretty low-level and susceptible to bugs. If you want an application to have any sort of ongoing maintainability, then you'll want to have some sort of CMS to house your information. Because of its flexibility and widespread use, Drupal is an excellent choice for your CMS.

This tutorial is geared towards Drupal developers who may or may not have a background in Actionscript coding. You'll need to know how to install modules and be comfortable with digging into a .module file to tweak some code.

Image by kk+

From my fiancee, What do you call a pirate who's willing to die for their beliefs? A M-ARRR-tyrrrr...

Ok, enough Talk Like A Pirate Day. Today's cool links delve into some basics about why maintaining and updating your company web site is good for your business, and why having an old-school site that hasn't been touched in years only makes you look at best unprofessional, at worst ridiculous.

Photo by theogeo

There's nothing worse than a dead blog-column idea, except perhaps a dead blog-column idea that's coming for your brains...

Congratulations to Resilient Furniture on a successful site launch a few weeks ago! Check out the portfolio piece for more information.

Photo by mushon

I have a real soft spot for newspapers.

Before I set off on my own as a web designer, I worked at a newspaper in Memphis as a web designer for two years. My college degree is in Media Design, which is an amalgamation of a journalism degree and a graphic design degree. I cut my teeth laying out print pages for many, many different publications. So when I hear news that newspapers are dying, it makes me sad.