Loading Captivate files into an AS3 Flash SWF

I researched the different methods available for AVM1 to AVM2 communication, and discovered there are a few workarounds that can enable the AS3 SWF to communicate with the AS2 SWF. I spent the entire day whipping up a Captivate-specific proof-of-concept.

Assistive computer technology and web accessibility

Just thought I’d pass this link on: http://www.assistiveware.com/videos.php (short write-up here — thanks to Roger Johansson for the link.)

These are video profiles of people with disabilities — mild to severe — who use assistive computer technology to improve their lives. Some people use the computers to simply help them with their jobs (such as a blind person who is a professional French-to-English translator), while others use their computers as a lifeline to the rest of the world.
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Armed with a basic understanding of accessibility, and with a little planning, a web developer can create courses and/or websites that contain rich content — even Flash movies and videos — while supporting a majority of assistive computer/alternative web browsing technologies.

Flash and XML

Kirupa.com is a great resource for Flash tutorials, including how to use XML with Flash.

Online XML-to-XSD Converter

This week I needed to create an XML Schema doc for work. The XSD file would be used to validate XML files I’ll be making for my online courses. Well, being a newbie to XSD files (though not XML), I was making decent but very slow progress when a thought occurred to me: it should be possible to reverse-engineer an XML file to create an XSD file.