Acknowledgments

While there is only one name that goes on the cover, this book was not produced by one person alone. There are many, many acknowledgments I would like to make to all the people who have made this possibility a reality.

First of all, thanks go to Bruce Epstein—editor extraordinaire and (I suspect) superhero as well. Bruce's patience with my seemingly endless emails, his faith, and his support have proved invaluable. And he has helped to transform my words into something akin to prose.

I would also like to thank all the people at O'Reilly who have helped out with all their talents. There is so much more that goes into a book than simply writing some words, and I am grateful for all the people who have contributed in their many ways. My thanks to Matt Hutchinson, Claire Cloutier, Glenn Bisignani, Rob Romano, Johnna Dinse, Reg Aubry, Sarah Sherman, Emma Colby, David Futato, Andrew Savikas, and everyone in the marketing, sales, tools, design, and production departments.

I am grateful to Tim O'Reilly for maintaining a vision for a publishing company that is dedicated to such high quality. It shows at every step along the way, and it is reflected in the end product. It is truly a pleasure and honor to work with O'Reilly.

I would like to acknowledge my agent, David Fugate, of Waterside Productions. David always makes sure that things are working well for everyone involved. He is absolutely great to work with, and his enthusiasm and dedication make a difference.

I would like to thank Robert Reinhardt, my friend and sometimes co-author, for all that he has done for me and all that he continues to do. Robert is always there to help me test out new ideas and to offer his encouragement.

Also, I would like to thank Colin Moock for indirectly providing the opportunity to write this book by paving the way with ActionScript for Flash MX: The Definitive Guide. I would also like to thank him for graciously allowing me to adapt or reproduce several tables from his well-respected book, which was a frequent companion during the writing and reviewing process.

I would like to thank the Macromedians who develop and improve Flash, without whom there would be nothing to write about. And on a related note, thanks go to the entire Flash community for embracing Flash and ActionScript and for creating the demand for a book like this one.

This book has been transformed from its earlier stages into what you are about to read with the much appreciated assistance of technical reviewers who were kind enough to lend their time and expertise. Specifically, I would like to thank Sham Bhangal, Gareth Downes-Powell, and Devon O'Dell for their feedback for the entire manuscript. Thanks also to Brian Lesser for his comments on the recipes relating to FlashCom and Pavils Jurjans for his careful review of the recipes on regular expressions. Thanks are also due to John Viega and Andy Oram for reviewing the encryption/security recipe. Last, but not least, I would like to thank Gareth and Devon for providing assistance with PHP scripts, Arun Bhalla for his assistance with Perl scripts, and Peter deHaan for his assistance with ColdFusion scripts. I would also like to thank other technical reviewers who offered feedback on one or more chapters, including Kathryn Aaker, Beau Ambur, Jeffrey Bardzell, Eric Bell, David Humphreys, Chafic Kazoun, Danny Kodicek, Tom Muck, Samuel Neff, Jesse Warden, and Edoardo Zubler. I apologize if I accidentally omitted anyone from the list.

Thanks are definitely due to the many readers, to the developers on numerous mailing lists, and to all the people who post to various newsgroups and user forums. All the questions and answers and feedback are more beneficial than you can know.

Certainly not least of all, I would sincerely like to thank all the wonderful people in my life who love, support, and encourage me.

And without a doubt I acknowledge the oneness, the great mystery that makes all things possible.

—Joey Lott

Los Angeles, California

May 2003