Flash and Joomla News by Eyezberg

Developer SWF Guardian 1.5

What can DSG do for you?

• Manage access to your flash work even after it has left your hands (Even from a remote server!).
• Create time-limited licenses for SWF files.
• One license file manages the access of all internet viewers .
• Easy to use: No actionscript knowledge is required.
• Advanced custom actions: Allows actionscript developers to easily handle expired and non-expired keys with their own code.
• Virtually uncrackable key system: MD5 digest 'encryption' key validation. TEA encryption for secure key storage in component instances.

Flash Decompiler Trillix

I already have an article online with an overview of free or commercial SWF decompilers.

The guys from Eltima now kindly gave me access to a full version of their latest release, named Trillix.

I've test-driven it over the week-end, and everything worked perfectly on a SWF I brought over from work which I didn't have the source file for. 

The tool is just GREAT! I can replace URLs, I could recreate the fla from the swf, and the result, exported from Flash (which Trillix opens for you when decompiling is done) to swf, looked exactly like the original SWF.. except I had changed the URL to point to eyezberg.com for some fun, which also works!

If you want to check out: the swf is here: www.clubmed.ch, and here's a screenshot of the extracted images:

I'm not going to attach the .fla obviously, but it is 100% working, and I'm sure it will come in handy next time our agency gets a link wrong  on a friday afternoon!
Here it is opened in Flash:

I was going to post a long review about this software, but I like it so much (having tested it now, I would definitely pay for the full version!) that I am going to play around with the tons of options some more instead and see what else I can change: texts, colors, links..

I love it, thank you Eltima / Stani !

PS: Mac version available also!
 

MochiBot: 4 simple lines of ActionScript, and you'll always know who accesses your SWFs where!

MochiBot is a Flash traffic monitoring tool (similar to a hit counter) that tracks the performance of individual Flash content files (SWFs) no matter where they end up on the web. If your SWF is on 5 different servers, then MochiBot will count the number of views that SWF got for all 5 servers. It's perfect for tracking how viral your Flash content is.

You simply copy and paste a few lines of ActionScript from MochiBot.com into your Flash file (FLA), and publish the SWF. Every time your Flash content is played, MochiBot sends a signal to the servers indicating where it is and that it's being played. MochiBot is completely unobtrusive, and will work with any type of Flash content: games, animations, banner ads, videos, or anything you can think up! The best part of all is that it has no effect on your content whatsoever.

byw, did I mention it's FREE? But you noticed that in the picture, right?

Sign up, ok?!

SWF Decompilers

A bad reputation for sometimes usefull tools: Decompilers allow you to read the ActionScript and extract ressources from SWF files.

Here are the best known of these tools, which might just come in handy some day when you need to look up in an swf which file it loads, or how that particular fonction works.. Range goes from free basic tool to commercial ones with many options:

• Flare

  is free, simple to use by right-clicking an SWF
  
  

• SWF Decompiler

  is very cheap but limited
  
  

• AVE Imperator

  is said to be good, haven't tested
  
  

• Sothink SWF Decompiler

  works well and allows you to recompile a fla from the swf
  
  

• Eltima Flash Decompiler

  has the same functionality
  
  

• ActionScript Viewer, aka ASV

  the best-known, very actively developed decompiler with many features and extensions
  
  

Wink: create interactive multimedia tutorials for free

Wink is a free Tutorial and Presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software (for example to explain some functionality of everybody's favorite CMS Joomla! ...).

Using Wink you can capture screenshots, add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective tutorial for your users. 

The cool thing about this software (apart from it being free) is that it generates an swf file which can very easily be presneted online. Capturing mouse movements and keyboard input is automated, so it is really esy to use and you'll quickly achieve professional results.