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Vera Fleischer: The Macromedian You Never Knew
Scott Manning, 9/2/2003 -
Yes, they do exist.
 Being that there are thousands of employees at Macromedia, more of them have to be blogging than the few listed on their site. This was always a theory of mine, but was proven true when Emberton and I met Vera Fleischer at Flash Kit 2003 Conference & Expo.
It turns out that Vera was the one who interviewed and got the position as the German QA Flashist at Macromedia. She's been working there since March. She also runs a blog that gave more coverage on FlashKit 2003 than all the other Macromedia blogs combined. And how could we forget to mention that she is one of the illustrious Flash Goddesses? After getting to know Vera and reading some of her stuff, we asked her to write with us on the site. She has agreed. Now it is time that ActionScript.com let the Flash Community know about Vera Fleischer, the Macromedian you never knew. So how German are you? I mean, your English is pretty good.
I was born and raised in Germany, so my German is fluent. I moved to the U.S. in 1996 and have been trying to lose my accent. I still have a little bit of an accent, and I also now have an American accent when I speak German. Most people speak one language perfectly. I speak two languages almost perfectly. As of today, I am still a German citizen. My application for U.S. citizenship is being processed. Do you like the States? Do you like it better than Germany? Is there somewhere else you'd prefer to live?
Yes, I like the United States. I decided to leave my family and friends behind so that I could live here, and I have not regretted it. I definitely think that the U.S. and I are a better match than Germany and I. For the past 16 months I have been living in San Francisco and could not imagine a better place to live. How long have you been using Flash?
I started using Flash three years ago. I had just moved to Virginia and started a job as operations assistant at Boxer Learning Inc. Boxer was using Flash to create online math tutorials for elementary students. I was not originally hired to do anything geeky but was told that I might be asked to help out with simple edits in Flash. I installed Flash 4 on my computer and fell in love. I came in on the weekends to learn all about it. I studied my coworkers' code to teach myself ActionScript. Flash became the center of my focus, and I never looked back. Then I got laid off and landed a Flash developer job at the University of Virginia. Can we see some of the stuff you have done in Flash?
There are three projects I enjoyed building the most. One is a database-driven, multiple-choice quiz. I made it to teach myself PHP and mySQL. It's collaborative, meaning that users can contribute their own multiple choice question/answer sets to the database. The quiz is all about electronic music. Then there is the 3D molecule modeler. It uses Flash's XML parser to read CML (Chemical Mark-up Language) files. CML is a special type of XML. Each CML file describes the x, y, and z coordinates of every atom in a molecule. After reading the CML file, the molecule modeler spits out a visually rendered 3D molecule. I have an example with a few molecules, but it can really display any molecule of up to about 200 atoms. I need to give props to Todd Yard. He is a 3D wizard and has been very helpful on the Were-here forums. The last thing that was kind of fun is the FBlogViewer, a component that reads the RSS feed of any blog and draws it in Flash. It supports embedded jpg's and video. It was just one of those things where I looked at my blog and said "I can do that in Flash." But it certainly isn't any more useful than an HTML-based blog. And how did you go from using Flash to working at Macromedia?
It all started when I first noticed Macromedians roaming the Flash message boards. Mike Chambers and Nigel Pegg were probably the most visible at the time. I thought that it would be really cool to get hired by Macromedia to play with their products. A little while later, I found myself moving to San Francisco and thought that maybe now was the time to look into it. I sent an email to Mike Chambers requesting an informational interview. I didn't know that he was actually not living in San Francisco at the time. Not surprisingly, that interview never happened. Next, I applied for a position called MX Specialist. Didn't get that one, but apparently my application stayed on file because a few months later, Macromedia contacted me about the German QA engineer position. I accepted. So what's it like working at Macromedia? If you could compare it to other places you've worked at, I'd love to hear about that.
The main difference is that I feel more allegiant towards Macromedia than I have towards any other company. I just really like what Macromedia is doing, and it makes me feel proud to be part of it, and that sounds really cheesy. But it's the truth. Previously, as a Flash developer, I was just a little astronaut floating around in space. Now that I work at Macromedia, I feel like I have come on board the mothership. Another difference is that I have ingested more free pizza, Indian food and Krispy Kreme donuts in the last six months than ever before. What was it like starting out there? Were you freaked out, excited, or too cool to show emotion?
I was very excited. The day I came by the office to do the paperwork, I yelped at my soon-to-be boss "I'm going to be a Macromedian!" Then I asked him where I could get that Macromedia sweatshirt he was wearing, but they were all out. Give us a little more information about your job at Macromedia. Some people may not realize that QA stands for Quality Assurance.
Yes, QA stands for Quality Assurance. It means that I test Flash and report bugs. And since I am the German QA engineer, it's all about the ä, the ö, and the ü. So if we find a bug in Flash, does that mean we can blame you? (Just kidding)
Absolutely. (Just kidding) In terms of keeping their blogs updated in the Macromedia crew, some are very active while others only update their blogs once in a blue moon. Also, the different bloggers put out different types of information. Chambers seems to stick with developer information almost religiously and Dowdell puts out links to all kinds of tech news not limited to Macromedia. What and how often can we expect to see stuff from you?
I blog mostly about ActionScript, projects I'm working on in my spare time, and my ponderings about Flash in general. I try to update my blog several times a week. As soon as the new release is out, you can expect more action than usual on my blog. What is up with hooping.org? It looks like you're a professional.
A few friends and I started hooping.org earlier this year. It's all about hula hooping. We have a community blog, forum, calendar, photo gallery and more. While the site is intended to cater to hoopers nationwide, we have found that most of them are concentrated up and down the coast of California. Here in San Francisco, I am part of a local group called BAH (Bay Area Hoopers) which meets every Sunday afternoon in the park. Hooping is fun and meditative, it's easy to come up with new tricks, and you should definitely give it a try. And by you I mean everybody. ---------------------- That concludes our introductory interview with Vera Fleischer. Her first ActionScript.com article entitled Flashers: Just a bunch of copycats has received a lot of feedback. You can also check out the two blogs she contributes to: Mediasparkles and hooping.org. She has a personal blog as well, but she'd rather you not go there. Vera has also been active in the ActionScript Reference. Scott
Scottmanning.com
Replies: 6 comments
1) Hello Vera!
posted by John D Giotta (), 09/02/2003 12:34 PM CST
2) I´m proud of you, Vera! greetings from good old Germany
posted by Bianca (), 09/03/2003 03:14 AM CST
3) Vera rocks! She's highly intelligent, an awesome hooper and kick ass flasher. It was fun running my sites rss feed through Vera's Flash Blog viewer. Too cool. Missed you at the burn... donovan
posted by Dbug (), 09/03/2003 09:22 PM CST
4) Well done, Vera!
So says your proud father in Old Germany, who allways has an eye on you.
posted by Willi Fleischer (), 09/04/2003 12:13 PM CST
5) Liebe Vera, auch wenn es vielleicht langweilig wird, aber auch ich bin megastolz auf Dich. Deine Mama
posted by Ulla Fleischer (), 09/08/2003 12:05 PM CST
6) What's the other eye doing Willi? Sounds tricky, but OK... :) Props Vera, hard work = respect.
posted by Optometrist (), 09/15/2003 11:55 AM CST
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