Yovav (Jay) Meydad's Personal Blog » Flash

Tip: How to send Flash elements to the back

JayMeydad — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:37:12 +0000

I was checking the new LinkedIn search feature earlier today and noticed that the results displayed once you start typing inside the people search box were covered by the 300×250 flash ad.

This issue exists on many web sites where Flash objects appear in the front, and cover dynamic HTML content. One example are pages that have embedded YouTube videos as well as Snap Shots that appear as a layer under the video player instead in front of it .

To solve this issue, you don’t need to be a Flash development guru. All you should do is make sure the Flash object (ad, embedded video player, etc.) has a transparent background. Depending on whether you are using the OBJECT or EMBED tag:

Add the following parameter to the OBJECT tag:
Add the following parameter to the EMBED tag: wmode="transparent"

Once you change your code, you should not see an issue similar to the one below.

Discovering Navigaya – An Innovative Start Page

JayMeydad — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:52:41 +0000

I just discovered Navigaya and I like it a lot.

What is it? Well, if you read their about page you will find something like “an innovative open multimedia platform”. But to me it is hybrid between the Mac widgets experience and a innovative start page, built using Flash and running inside your browser. Yourminis (R.I.P) was probably the closest one to Navigaya in term of rich user experience. All other start pages (iGoogle, Netvibes, etc.) are not even close. Something in it also reminds me the very cool open source media center – Boxee.

Get a feel for it and give it a try.

Kudos to my friend, Issac Barel, who is not just a great guitar player but also a gifted designer for creating this innovative product.

More photos: Playlists, Overview, Music, Calculator, Music and Top Stories.

2008 Web Trend Map released – Snap Shots on and powers the map

JayMeydad — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:38:57 +0000

iA, a strategic design agency based in Tokyo, released the web trend map for 2008. Around 300 of the most influential and successful web sites and services were pinned down to the greater Tokyo-area train map.

This year, the map (which is available as a 3D poster as well) not only uses Snap Shots to display previews of the home pages of the different sites, but it also lists Snap Shots among the successful and influential ones. Next to Snap Shots, on the “Technology Line” (green), you can find MyBlogLog, WordPress, Technorati, Reddit, Blogger, Feedburner, Drupal, Opera, Adobe, Flash, PDF, MySQL, IBM, Linux, Python, Sony and others.

This is a very nice acknowledgement to the Snap Shots service, and a great implementation using Snap Shots.

Technorati Tags: iA, Snap Shots, Tokyo train map, Web Trend Map 2008, MyBlogLog, WordPress, Technorati, Blogger, Feedburner, Drupal, Opera, Adobe, Flash, PDF, MySQL, IBM, Linux, Python, Sony, Reddit

Google SearchMash’s new Flash version is now using Snap Shots

JayMeydad — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 01:40:06 +0000

SearchMash, the playground for Google engineers keen to invent new technologies and interfaces, has just released a Flash-based version that uses Snap.com’s website previews.

The more I use it, it feels like Snap.com. Ain’t previews great when you browse and search the web!

Or try the new SearchMash

Technorati Tags: Google, SearchMash, Snap.com, Snap Shots, Previews