Rating: 
Summary: Great book by great publishing Co.
Review: Although I have had some experience using Flash, I must say this book has helped me tremendously. Whether you are a bigginer, or an expert, the book covers most of everything you need to know. The Author explains everything pretty thorough. I would recommend it to anyone that wants to learn flash in a jiffy. The publishing company has also produced other books that I am happy to say works out for us computer illiterate people. Thanks a bunch.
Rating: 
Summary: Overexplained and Tedious
Review: Although I'd not used Flash before, I have used many graphics apps before, and have been using a computer for some time. Perhaps this has soemthing to do with why I came away from this bok feeling insulted. The book provides no concrete samples or projects, gives no real sense of accomplishment, and yet manages to take up 300 pages. How is this? By tediously overexplaining things and going into absurd detail over things that frankly, should already be second nature to anyone intending to create with Flash. An example - taking an entire page to explain and instruct on contextual menus. That's right, an entire page to explain that if you click your right mouse button, you will get a list of options particular to whatever you are clicking on. The videos on the CD are equally as tedious, with the author speaking at a snail's pace, never really accomplishing much of interest. If you are completely new to graphic applications and generally adverse to / afraid of poking around an interface without hand-holding, this book may be useful. At the same time, if that describes you, do you really want to be jumping into Flash in the first place? I found this book immensely frusterating and very dissapointing. Next time, I will buy a book that comes reccomended, rather than the one that was in the 30% off Bargain Bin.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Flash Book I have seen
Review: As a Flash fanatic, I own 5 "Bible" to "Reference" Flash books: most of them thick and heavy. I wanted to learn and master Flash as quickly as possible without going to or pay its classes hundreds to thousands of $. So, I didn't (don't) have time nor patience reading through some loquacious-professor-speaking nor I'll-entertain-you w/ nonsensical stuffs. This is my favorite tutorial/quick reference book in that the contents are clear and concise to the point with pertinent illustrations. The CD-rom is as equally excellent. It is a stream video lessons that are practical and applicable to your sites. I wish I had owned this book as my first Flash book. It would have saved me so much time and money. I look forward to reading more of his books.
Rating: 
Summary: The real review
Review: As a Flash fanatic, I own 5 "Bible" to "Reference" Flash books: most of them thick and heavy. I wanted to learn and master Flash as quickly as possible without going to or pay its classes hundreds to thousands of $. So, I didn't (don't) have time nor patience reading through some loquacious-professor-speaking nor I'll-entertain-you w/ nonsensical stuffs. This is my favorite tutorial/quick reference book in that the contents are clear and concise to the point with pertinent illustrations. The CD-rom is as equally excellent. It is a stream video lessons that are practical and applicable to your sites. I wish I had owned this book as my first Flash book. It would have saved me so much time and money. I look forward to reading more of his books.
Rating:
Summary: Best Flash Book I have seen
Review: As a Flash fanatic, I own 5 "Bible" to "Reference" Flash books: most of them thick and heavy. I wanted to learn and master Flash as quickly as possible without going to or pay its classes hundreds to thousands of $. So, I didn't (don't) have time nor patience reading through some loquacious-professor-speaking nor I'll-entertain-you w/ nonsensical stuffs. This is my favorite tutorial/quick reference book in that the contents are clear and concise to the point with pertinent illustrations. The CD-rom is as equally excellent. It is a stream video lessons that are practical and applicable to your sites. I wish I had owned this book as my first Flash book. It would have saved me so much time and money. I look forward to reading more of his books.
Rating:
Summary: A great way to learn
Review: As someone who had no experience using Flash 5, I found this book/CD bundle extremely useful. Normally I get bogged down trying to follow instructions and match them with printed screen shots, however this book eliminates that particular problem. I found the video extremely useful in getting to know my way around the user interface. I feel this way of learning help me flatten what can sometimes be a steep learning curve. Overall a very good learning experience.
Rating:
Summary: Flash 5 made easy should have been the title.
Review: Ever look at web sites and see all the special effects included and wonder why you can't do that? Ever want to add Flash products to your pages and think that you didn't have enough smarts to do it? Well the time has come to get a hold of this cd/book combination and begin teaching yourself the things you need to know. Putting things in a step by step mode of learning and using the cd to follow along you'll begin creating flash layout in no time flat. Learning things like the basics of flash, creating graphic objects, then modifying and creating complex objects. Also you begin to build symbols, animations in a frame by frame layout, create buttons, movies and then add sounds and finally publish what you create. Overall this book will help even those with little or no computer or web design experience
Rating:
Summary: Video makes learning a lot easier
Review: I generally find it slow and tedious to read computer books. I get bogged down in trying to follow all the instructions and make them match up with the screen pictures. This book comes with a CD that plays video on your computer. Doug Sahlin, the author, tells you how to do things in Flash, and demonstrates them with moving screen shots. It's like watching over the shoulder of an expert. I am picking Flash up much faster than I ever would have and I hope that more computer books come with great videos like this one.
Rating:
Summary: Fresh and New Way to Learn
Review: I have to admit, I've wanted to learn Flash for awhile, but a copy of a different Flash book just sat my desk for months. I dreaded reading page after page of instruction. When this one came along, however, I dove right in! I may have "cheated" a bit by going straight to the CD and putting it in my PC. It was so refreshing to actually see how this all works. (With that instruction as inspiration, I did refer to the book for more information.) I've already ordered the extra CD that is available for this book, and can't wait for more.
Rating:
Summary: fun, clear, concise, with some goofy comedy relief!
Review: I just completed the virtual classroom CD accompanying Doug Sahlin's Flash 5 book. I must say that it was an enjoyable way to spend a few hours. I teach graphics glasses and am always interested in seeing other teaching methodologies for classroom, distance, and self-paced learning environments. This book could be used in any of those arenas. The author displays a thorough knowledge of the subject in a clear and concise fashion both in the video and the book chapters. The book is laid out in a clean and organized style and although I would recommend this book for beginner/beginners, I added a few new tips to my collection. I enjoyed the video presentations, although I had some sputtering of sound and sound/lip sync problems with the real player. Tonight I viewed the video again from another computer wondering if the voice over might accomplish the same thing without the video of the instructor as it's really the content in the main window that is important and well presented. However, you can see that the author is a clown and having a good time creating this project for us, and the element of a real teacher can ad that touch of humanity missing in our on-line virtual existance! I value the ability to have my program of flash running simultaneously with the video so I could pause the video and do the lessons. I have used flash to produce a few company demos and consinder myself an intermediate user. I get stuck on the actionscripting and this book touches on actionscripting enough so one could advance to a book like Foundation Actionscripting with a basic understanding of this robust flash feature. I recommend this book to flash beginners and anyone who hasn't launched their flash program in a while and wants a good clean organized review.
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