Macromedia Flash is a tool for creating interactive and animated Web sites. Flash is a multimedia graphics program especially for use on the internet. Flash enables you to create interactive movies on the internet and on CD.
Flash uses vector graphics, which means that the graphics can be scaled to any size without losing clarity/quality. You can import vector graphics from illustrator 0.6 into Flash. although you can import virtually any media content into Flash, such as 3D, video and music files; image files like JPEG, animated GIF, PNG do not have scaling quality.
animated images and Java applets are often used to create dynamic effects on Web pages. the advantages of Flash [Shockwave movies] are: Flash loads much faster than animated images and Flash allows interactivity, animated images do not.
Note that the plugin to play Flash is free and it can be downloaded from
the Macromedia site
visit: www.macromedia.com.
to learn more about Flash
visit: www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flash.