Rating: 
Summary: I Love Friends of Ed!
Review: Friends of Ed is great! This book is an awesome learning tool. I already bought the next book "Foundation ActionScript". And my copy of "New Masters of Flash" is on the way. Buy this book if you want to learn how to use the program effectively, and dislike computer books without a sense of humor.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Up to date Book if you are getting started
Review: Takes you from start to finish, you actually do a real project, and this book is only the beginning of a great series. Easy to read, authors are easy to understand, email them with questions they respond right away, great user feedback forum online, and overall the best book I have purchased. Pound for page, this is the heavyweight champ of all Flash books.
Rating:
Summary: Best application book I've used
Review: If you need or want to learn Flash 5.0, this is the only book you need to consider. Every excercise builds and expands on what you have already completed to make a finished product. You will constantly be thinking of other ways to apply what you are learning. If you've completed the Macromedia tutorial you probably aren't that impressed by Flash 5.0. If you complete Foundation Flash you'll never want to use anything else. I immedeatly purchased Foundation ActionScript. Shams' writing is complete, logical with some sharp wit. Don't bother with the others.
Rating:
Summary: Foundation Flash
Review: A very well written and informative book - ideal for any one starting out with Flash, or somebody who knows flash but simply needs to upgrade. I definately reccommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Foundation Flash 5
Review: This is by far and away the best book to learn Flash! I have been buying Flash books for the past year and a half and none had the user friendly style and teaching techniques that this incredible tome has! I highly recommend it for beginners in Flash as well as someone that may be a web developer that has been given the task of doing a Flash site and has never done it. This book WILL show you how to do every technique needed to be a Flash developer. I feel greatly indebted to the authors and especially Amanda Farr for giving us her fabulous website, Visual-fx.com Thank you Amanda and keep up the great work! -Rob :)
Rating:
Summary: the mutts nuts
Review: quite simply superb - the tutorials are generic enough that you can adapt the techniques to your own designs without any difficulty - a big failing of other Flash books is that the tutorial content is so specific that you don't really learn to adapt the technique.This book won't teach you how to design a website from scratch - thank god. It gives you the tools you need to get started on the road to great Flash design followed up with Foundation ActionScript the two books make a great foundation - funny that :)
Rating:
Summary: Accurate title, helps the user build a great foundation
Review: I like this book better than other basic-intermediate Flash books I own. This book is written in a way to help the reader understand flash, rather than take the user through a tour of the entire program. If you are learning Flash for the first time, this would be an excellent choice for a starting point, but I would recommend it be used with another more conventional tutorial book as it is not very comprehensive in its explanations of the features of Flash. (It might be hard to follow as an introduction to the program.) I've been using Flash for a while now and I'm not a beginner. I can't say that this book taught me anything totally new. But I do have a better understanding of how things work and why. This helps me a lot with web development. When I encounter new challenges or variations of past problems my understanding helps me figure out solutions. This book is part of a series of books on Flash and I will definitely buy the next one "Foundation Action Scripting"
Rating:
Summary: Turn into a Flash "Gonna Bee" instead of a "Wanna Bee"
Review: Question: Do you want to learn to Flash? This most difficult program requires the precise application to detail Sham provides. For some, the first 75 pages are the toughest to wade through. If your gonna loose it, this is where it's gonna happen. Get to page 75, however, and it's "bingo" you are coming up on how to build a Flash Web Site. The timid need not apply. Flash seperates the talented and gifted from the maddening crowd. If you wanna Learn Flash, this book is where it's at.
Rating: 
Summary: The best intro Flash 5 book I've seen, but with a few flaws
Review: If you want to learn Flash 5 from scratch this is a great book, depending on what you expect. I have a multitude of Flash 4 & 5 books, and the biggest problem with most of them is that they fall into 2 categories: 1) The "Reference" book style; - All the features of the program are explained without much guidance towards how to actually start and finish a project. These books are good once you know the program to refer back to. Examples: "The Flash 5 Bible", "Flash 5 Visual Quickstart", "Flash 5 Creative Web Animation". 2)The "Project" book style; - The book attempts to teach you how the program works by having you start & finish a project or projects. Unfortunately most of these books don't thoroughly explain "why" you are doing what you are doing. Also, you must blindly follow along, hoping that the skills you are learning can apply to your own individual needs. Many times the "project" is something you will never use. Examples: "Flash Web Design, V5 Remix"- Hillman Curtis, "Flash 5 Magic". "Foundation Flash 5" is good because it is a "project" based book, and assumes you know nothing about the program, and teaches you by example, holding your hand throughout a handful of little projects and one big one. The author Sham Bhangal does a very respectable job of explaining "why" you are doing what you are doing. Beware, as some readers have pointed out, as there are quite a few errors and typos marring this otherwise excellent book. Most of them are explained on their website. I had to contact them via email twice and both times they got back to me within a week. Not great, but at least you can contact the authors and they do get back to you. Also, there are two main chapters on ActionScript, and one of them teaches you by having you design a "card game". Personally, I have no desire to design games, so I wish they would have chosen a more "universal" example to illustrate the same or other ActionScript features. ActionScript is vast enough to have included some more "mainstream" uses. I don't feel that my knowledge of ActionScript is at the level that they would have you believe it will be at. But that is what "Foundation ActionScript" is for, which I am reading now. But overall, this is book was well worth the time spent, and I haven't seen a better intro to intermediate Flash 5 book so far. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for all levels
Review: First of all the authors of this book and the series of books they have written are brilliant, they have a great way of making even the most complex subjects very simplistic. This book starts off slow and in the very basics of flash and gets quite extensive towards the end, I believe they stop right at actionscripting for which there is a whole other book (quite needed!) I am (was) actually a Flash instructor at a college here in OC, the college provided or recommended their own book but I never used it and I told my students that purchasing that book was not necessary. I actually tought out of this book! And on the first day I told everyone they didn't have to buy it but if they did they would find it very helpful throughout the couse and later on, it's also definately a good reference book to go back to if you don't use Flash all the time and happen to forget. Anyway needless to say every class I tought loved this book and loved learning flash. I even took some example/exercises out of the book. Everyone learned the full contents of the class and found it very fun. The illustrations and sample projects help a lot, if you are learning on your own I recommend you do them. Anyway I've had this book for years now and as a user and instructor I would say there's no other book I would turn to.
| 
