I have experience developing Flash in both AS2 and AS3. I started toying with the software back in high-school and got serious about it when I found a position at my university. This was a quick transition and I evolved my skills just as the software evolved as well.

Having this information posted in my LinkedIn profile immediately throws me advertisements for job postings which are Flash related. After browsing through several pages of posting here is a major failure which I notice:

Entry-Level AS2 Experienced Programmer

Whats wrong with this posting you might ask? They obviously are looking for someone to continue development on their product which was developed in AS2. The problem isn’t that part, its the rest. AS2 has been out since 2006 when Flash Player 9 came out and supported AS3. People still use it but the new kids aren’t picking it up. Anyone knowing AS2 has been at Flash development for probably at least 5 years. If you’re looking for an experienced AS2 programmer, you might be looking at someone who has 7+ years of Flash work in their pocket. So altogether, with all that experience and wealth of deprecated knowledge, you are looking at an entry-level job. Say what?

This is simply another great example at a failed job advertisement. Employers need to make an effort when posting job ads and not simply let their HR department write the requirements. Don’t agree? Post a comment!

Location: Vancouver, Canada

Cash: Up to  $25,000

Website:  www.growlab.ca

Provides: Four months of startup work and mentor-ship, three of which are spent in Vancouver and one in San Francisco. You’ll have to relocate to participate in the program, as is the case with most incubator programs. They provide office space for the duration.

Their take: unknown.

Location: Montreal, Canada

Cash: $10,000 for the project plus $5,000 per person

Website: www.founderfuel.com

Provides: 3 month startup program packed with guest lectures, presentations and direct feedback on your product and progress. You have to find your own place in Montreal for the 3 months but you aren’t required to stay there afterwards. They offer office space in the notman house which looks modern and prone to productivity. Also: unlimited Redbull and coffee for us caffeine junkies.

Their take: 6% of the company.

So what are my feelings on all these startup incubators? Do it all. Apply to all of the incubator programs. The help, mentor-ship and experience they will bring to your startup equate to years of startup failures and successes. Y-Combinator alone has over 300 success stories such as justin.tv and Dropbox.

Got rejected by the programs? You’ll have still gained from them simply by applying. The applications feature requirements such as your portfolio of web related work, a clear and concise sales pitch and most importantly: the team. Ideas can be fine-tuned, revenue models can be changed but a bad team stays just that, bad. If you don’t get along before even starting a project just imagine what days of no sleep and non-stop coding will do to your team. In the end, if you truly think your idea will be successful then run with it, with or without the incubator programs, but definitely apply.

You: An aspiring chef, you get accepted into a prestigious culinary school using your mom’s best recipes. You have to deal with your fat and rude supervising chef until you can make it on your own.

We plan on finishing the game in the coming week or so, but until then here’s a sneak peak into the unfinished game.

For this game, I wanted a classic feel for the game-play yet have cool features such as burst weapons, radar stations and random paths for the enemy ships. I got 2/3 of the features done rather quickly before the weekend ran out. Check out the game and let me know thoughts and ideas! Perhaps the game has potential?

Scroller Game

Note: There isn’t any collision detection and I wasn’t happy with the mouse behavior so you’ll have to use the arrow keys to navigate.

What in the world is NMR spectroscopy, you say? Glad you asked. I have no clue. How it works in the lab goes a little something like this:

1. Chemist makes a new reaction or compound
2. Their next step is figuring out the structure of the new compound
3. They throw the compound into a giant magnet and look at the resulting resonance graph
4. From the graph (called spectrum) they can determine the structure and other properties of the compound.

Feel free to read more about NMR at the Wiki page. I know I have spent countless hours reading it over.

So what does the animation actually do? Just imagine that you only have a spectrum and from this spectrum you need to ‘build’ your compound. You have a general sense of what it must look like as you’ve started from a compound that you’ve bought or made previously. In the media you will see the interactive graph which will highlight each corresponding sections of the molecule. This helps students to learn and understand how the molecules can be reconstructed using only the spectrum. Visual representation is key and a lot of time was spent in getting the graphical representations of the various ‘paired’ elements. Elements which are related or affect others are clearly indicated.

Ready for another sample? Great. Here is the propanoic acid animation.

The remaining animations can be seen at the flashchem website