By John Townley

The amount of Flash around is simply mind-boggling. My last search on Northern Light for "Flash AND swf" yielded over 650 results. Some of them are little self-serving ad sites, but a lot of them are absolutely huge, with links that stretch from here to the Moon. So you could go forth and do likewise, but to save you some time, here are some of the best we found. The English ones, that is. There are Flash sites abounding in Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Czech, Italian, French, a number of undeciferable Nordic languages, most of which ask you to download 5 or 6 meg of special characters to read them - as if that would help.

So, this article is short by comparison to some - since it's really only a list with recommendations. But we're willing to bet you'll spend more time with it than anything you've read lately. So, dive right in:

First the self-serving stuff. While it's true that our parent company owns this first site, and we dig the people that run it, it's also a really good Flash resource/education site that will help you understand this great medium better. So here's the link to our own FlashKit.

The Vector Zone is a cool Macromedia sponsored site with a strong historical/standards section. It also has features, feature archives, news, links, lots of tech resources.

The Swishzone is home to a sweet, inexpensive app ($30 currently, the demo is free), to make your Flash type explode, spin and do other weird things. See our recent article about it. A big hit at FlashForward2000.

OpenSWF.org is focused on anything and everything you want to know about or do with swf files. Latest products out, news on ones to come, a real resource for tools (check out the jump-link "3rd party tools").

Flashjester products (there are lots) and all kinds of tricks they're good for. Plus lots of links.

flashwave.co.ukThis is a British site, Flash with an accent. Downloads, Tutorials, BETA, News, Features, ads...

Swifty Utilities are a set of utils for Windows 9x written by Burak KALAYCI. Such as: Swiffer | Swifty Xena | Swifty Hercules | Swifty Zeus | Swifty Unprotector| Swifty Batch Projector Creator| Swiff Extractor]

GeoMagnet is a Search Engine and Directory Dedicated to Flash Sites.

Flash student resource kit. Boy, is that an understatement! This site is stuffed with material from the simplest to the most complex leading edge designers.

Read on for more...