I thought I'd ask this great collective body of wisdom. You guys seem to know something about everything. Or at least bluff your way through!
I have a 14 year old son who took a beginner's class in Flash. He loved it. He's always been very creative, loved to draw, and has a great (skewed!) sense of humor. So animation seemed a natural next step. His final project was awesome and hysterical. He was able to download a free trial version for 30 days, but that has now expired.
My son also has a history of picking up hobbies and discarding them like used tissues. So I am not about to foot this bill. I've told him he can use his savings to buy Flash.
Here's the rub. The price on Flash 8.0 is $699. I am not kidding. There is an "education" version that I think is legit for $299, with the only restriction being that it can't be used for commercial purposes. Not an issue here, but I'm still not 100% sure the source is legit.
And while I work for a tech company, we do not have any special employee purchase deals with Adobe/Macromedia.
Alternatively, there are some much cheaper flash editors (Koolmoves, Swish, etc) that allow some flash creations, but without nearly the same features (as far as I can tell). But they sure are less expensive, and my son may opt to buy one of these if he can't stomach the cost of Macromedia Flash.
So, a couple of questions for the group:
- Any suggestions/info on cheaper (legit) sources for Flash? Maybe older, downrev versions?
- Any first hand knowledge, thoughts, or impressions of the Flash-wannabe alternatives, and how they stack up?
I really do want my son to be responsible for buying this software, but I'd like to avoid bankrupting him. I know that he learned a lot (and felt great pride) when he earned enough to buy his own iPod. He's got about $200 saved up, and that seems to feel about the right range for this.
Thanks in advance for all of your help!
Take care,
Rich
