I'm working more with FDT nowadays in addition to Flash and Flex. FDT is a cool product and certainly brings some nice features to the table.

I did, however, have a little problem when I first installed the FDT Enterprise Standalone on my Windows XP machine - where Flex Builder 3 was already installed and running nicely.

After installing FDT Enterprise and quickly putting together a little test package and script I hit the "Run" button. The result was an error message I hadn't expected:

Error: could not find a JVM.

Interesting, when you consider that FDT, like Flex, is based on Eclipse and therefore needs a JVM to even run!

So, it was time to surf around and try to work through the potential issues with my friends at Powerflasher

We spent an hour going through various settings and ideas. Finally a small difference the Windows JAVA_HOME setting mentioned by Maxim from Powerflasher got me curious.

Flexbuilder 3 had set this environment variable to "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Flex Builder 3\jre\bin" whereas Maxim's Windows JAVA_HOME was set to "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Flex Builder 3\jre"

I deleted the "\bin" to point the variable at the root level of the JRE install, restarted FDT, hit "Run" and hey presto - it ran!

So, if you get this issue, check your JAVA_HOME environment variable and drop the "\bin".

Flexbuilder 3 still runs perfectly too.

Thanks to Tilman, Maxim and Steffi from Powerflasher for their help!

While many of us are exploring the possibilities of FLARToolkit and FLARManager with Flash or Flex, Julian Oliver has already seen his fabulous Augmented Reality game, Levelhead, travel around numerous venues and galleries as a fully self-contained Augmented Reality Art Project.

Here's a little taste of what the game is all about:

levelHead v1.0, 3 cube speed-run (spoiler!) from Julian Oliver on Vimeo.

Note that this video was recorded a year ago and that the Levelhead project was touring in 2008!

Note also that this is NOT a Flash/Flex project and seems to contain no actionscript - it's running on a Linux box and was built with the original ARToolKit and not the actionscript port, FLARToolKit.

Time to get my sleeves rolled up and get back to work on yet another, more ambitious version of my AR business card project

More about Julian Oliver and Levelhead on his website...

Here's an example of nice and very practical design: The Clamp Table from Ryan Sorrell, currently studying Product and Furniture design at London's Kingston University:

Whether you need an extra table for a party, a temporary working surface or just because you find the idea and design cool, this table is ideal. Simply clamp to four legs to any board (differing thicknesses are catered for) and you have a table.

I'd love one of these for those times when I need a table for tinkering and building - this would certainly be more appropriate than the dining table!

Ryan has also designed a fabulous TV remote control:

Remotion is also a nice example of a design which would be intuitive and fun to use.

More from Ryan on his website...

I stumbled upon this lovely little Flash project in André Michelle's laboratory website today. Not only is it a nice little piece of work, it also sounds great and is fun to play with.

Sound patterns are created in a surprisingly intuitive way, allowing some pretty complex loops to be created with very little effort. Add to that the fact that the visual representation of the audio is spell-binding and you've found the perfect way to kill time and be creative to boot! This is art!

You'll find the ToneMatrix here...

Another find from Swissmiss' blog today, and one I had to share because it's simply fine - a joy to watch and very nicely done. (Sorry Tina, I've been plundering your blog this afternoon )

Enjoy