I got interested in creating flash animations. I went to Macromedia site. I was confused. From their product description I couldn't figure out which product does what. Thanks to mostly prior knowledge, I figured out that Dreamweaver MX is for web page design, FreeHand MX for vector graphics and Flash MX for creating Flash. Although I'm still baffled as to what Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio is for (except "developing magnetic Internet destinations and powerful multimedia" that id). I remember that a few years ago Director was a program for creating flash animations but what it is now or how does it compare to Flash MX (it's much more expensive)?

I downloaded trial versions of Dreamweaver MX, FreeHand and Flash MX. Look like learning them will require some time investments. I was delighted that I can open *.swf files. I figured out I could learn tricks by inspecting existing flash animations. I wasn't delighted when I discovered that *.swf files can be protected and Flash MX refused to open the first animation I tried. But Google made me lucky very quickly, there are tools to unprotect flash, e.g. Flash Toolset. Exploration begins..