This section of this book presumes familiarity with the technologies laid out in the Overview.

Necessary Skills and Knowledge

In general, researchers wishing to build RIAs for their research should be enthusiastic amateurs. Among the most important skills required in order to understand, use, and modify the following sample applications are...

familiarity with the Flash MX 2004 authoring environment and with the ActionScript programming language
access to and familiarity with a Flash Communication Server (FlashComm), including the documentation included with a FlashComm installation (see Resources, below)
access to and familiarity with a web hosting service that includes PHP and MySQL; a hosting service that includes the PhpMyAdmin web interface for MySQL management is optimal
intermediate knowledge of PHP scripting (view Wikibook), including MySQL-related functions (view Wikibook)
intermediate knowledge of general database design
experience using a file-transfer protocol (FTP) program

Resources

Flash MX 2004

A trial version of Flash MX 2004, including tutorial and documentation, may be downloaded from http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/.

Flash Communication Server

The FlashComm Documentation page (http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashcom/) includes the following essential documents (HTML and Adobe Acrobat format):

Developing Communication Applications
Client-Side Communication ActionScript Dictionary
Server-Side Communication ActionScript Dictionary

PHP

There is a PHP Wikibook. In addition, the main page for PHP development and related links, such as tutorials, is http://www.php.net.

MySQL

The PHP Wikibook covers PHP-MySQL interaction. The main page for the MySQL corporation is http://www.mysql.com/; the main page for developers is http://dev.mysql.com, and the main page for phpMyAdmin is http://www.phpmyadmin.net/.