I'm a big fan of using screen savers for promotional purposes. They are
cheap and easy to make. The best offer some level of interaction and
animation, but creating such screen savers with most screen saver authoring
tools usually requires quite a bit of design and development effort. There's
also a great deal of redundant graphical design required since you probably
already have animated GIFs or Flash files you'd like to use in your screen
savers.
Now there is a tool called Flash
Forge from Goldshell Digital Media (creators of Flax)
that helps you to instantly render screen savers from your existing Flash
files.
Flash
Forge is wizard-based and walks you through the screen saver creation
process, one step at a time. It helps you to select the Flash file, add web
links, and creates an installation package ready for download.
Admittedly the interface includes some silly artwork, and at
times, I found myself bouncing back and forth between screens, but if you
ignore the pictures and spend some time with the tool, you'll find this is a
very neat utility to help you to quickly create Flash-based screen savers
through the economical re-use of your existing Flash animations.
Now I'm not a Flash designer, but I have spent my fair share
of money on having Flash work designed for my sites. Flash
Forge affords me the ability to re-use those designs in new ways, so I
can now get more mileage out of my past Flash investments. And any tool that is
low cost ($60.00), and can give me a quick return on my investment is a
winner. Click here
for more information.
