Jesse Warden has put together a nice example of integrating Flex, Central, and FlashCom; three technologies that are near and dear to my heart. Be sure to log in and get a game going. The only trick I found was that to use the icon, you have to put in a URL of where you image is located. In the image above, you can see Ethan Malasky, Jesse, and I chatting away and getting in a few games. If you are interested in learning how to build Flex applications in Central, I will be speaking at Flash in the Can in April on just that subject. A more formal announcement will be coming later.

Check out his app here.

Mike Lyda has just released a new AIM based Central application. During development of the SDK, I was hoping that people would be able to see beyond the idea of just adding chat to an existing application and start to explore the possibilities of building different tools and utilities that make using AIM even better. Well, there is no doubt that Mike caught on to this.

He has released an app called AIM Watcher. The app is really quite simple but I have already found it extremely useful. Basically, it lays out the status of all your buddies in a timeline. Using this app, you get more of a sense of when their status did change, instead of just seeing who is online, offline, or away at the moment.

Be sure and install the application and check it out. Just as an FYI, you will need to install the AIM Client for Macromedia Central first to make this work. If you dont want to use the AIM client that is built into Central as your primary AIM client, you can just sign on and then set yourself to Away. When you do this, all messages sent to you will still be sent to your normal IM client but Central will still be able to monitor the status of all your buddies.

• AIMWatcher by Mike Lyda
• AIM & ICQ Clients for Macromedia Central

If you are interested in building Central apps that are able to access the AIM network, also be sure and check out the AIM SDK for Macromedia Central.