Remember way back in 2005 — specifically, in December and late November — when everyone under the sun began running "Best of 2005″ articles touting what they believed were the most important and interesting people, events, developments and products for the year? There were so many of these articles, it became impossible to tell them all apart. I mean, come on: XBox and iPod; Tom and Katie, Web 2.0 and Ajax. We talked about 'em too (ok, well, not the Tom and Katie thing), but like

everyone else, we just became lost in the shuffle.

Thus, this year, we've decided to beat the holiday rush, and announce our picks for "Best and Worst of 2006″ a little early. So without further ado, may we present Turdhead.com's guide to the Best and Worst New Things of 2006 (So Far). Why? Well… what else were we gonna do?
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After a rough year for many Americans (and, let's face it, the rest of the world, too), some people seem pretty pessimistic about the fate of the world these days. So in the spirit of "chin up," Turdhead.com would like to offer the following bit of encouragement: Here's our 100% expert-approved outlook for '06 that should give you a little (skewed) perspective:

In January, a tremendous earthquake (8.6 on the Richter scale!) will rock Ecaudor to its core. Three months later, Mount Vesuvius will once again erupt in Italy, pretty much devastating Naples as we know it. About a week after that, yet another earthquake will destroy San Francisco, leaving 300,000 homeless and thousands dead. But just to get things started: A deadly landslide in eastern New York will kill about 20 people within the first two weeks of the year.

Poets, playwrights, painters and

Nobel Peace prize winners will die, and a controversial U.S. president will send U.S. troops into Cuba to quell a rebellion once again.

Meanwhile, race riots in Atlanta and anti-police riots in Stockholm will leave innocent people dead and business districts in ruins.

By year's end, we'll also see yet another deadly typhoon and tsunami in Asia that will kill at least 10,000 people in Hong Kong alone.

Sounds dreadful, doesn't it? Like the end of the world as we know it? Truth is, it's pretty much the beginning of the world as most of us know it: All the events already happened in '06 — in 1906.

So relax! The world's an unknown, dangerous, adventurous and constantly evolving place. I think it's going to be interesting, but we'll make it through '06 together.

Happy New Year, everybody, and God bless us, every one!

One of the first things that pops into most people's minds when they hear the word "Flash content" is "animation." It's what made Flash so popular in the first place, and it's still a staple skill among most Flash programmers. Still, it's not something most of us learned in school (though I know many do these days).

I've got a few basic skills myself, but I've decided

it's time for me to get better at it. Which means it's time for me to ask other Flash and animation professionals: How did you learn to animate well?

Did you just study others' works? Practice, practice, practice?
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I won't even pretend to know what all Flash programmers want or need for Christmas, but thinking about it has made me realize how ready I am for something new.

Don't get me wrong: I think Macromedia has made a fantastic product of Flash, and I really don't have any complaints other than the usual nits. But still, there is a new year dawning…

For myself, I'd like to see more activity in the world of open-source Flash development. OSFlash has nurtured some pretty amazing projects this year (If you haven't checked them out, you owe it to yourself!), but I'd love to see an alternative to the Flash IDE itself — an open-source tool for the creation of any SWF content. No offense to Macrom… um, I mean, Adobe, of course: I think one reason we still lack a third-party development platform is because Macromedia did such a fantastic job in

creating the original Flash itself. But as the SWF format has been open for some time now, it surprises me there are still no open IDEs for Linux and other platforms.

I don't think it's any secret I'm a fan of open-source software, but bear me out.

With Sephiroth's SE|PY for script editing and MTASC for compiling, it seems we're only a little way off from a full authoring environment now. Add Screenweaver programming interfaces and functionality, and we're closing in on a RAD desktop application creation technology that can't be beat. (Granted, we can do it all today; it's just a little clunky. My new year's wish would be to have it all integrated and shiny, just like Mother Macromedia would have done.)

So… what do you want for Christmas?