If you admire the Flash environment for its ubiquity and all it has to offer when it comes to enlivening content accessible via a thin client, but don't have the skills of a Flash engineer, then a set of offerings from a small company called Qarbon may be for you.

The first of these offerings are two Flash movie authoring tools for mortals called Viewlet Builder and ViewletCam. Unlike many other programming and development tools that are made for masses and often turn out neutered results to match, these tools have got to be the shortest path between some raw materials (the content) and a final result that would fool most experts into thinking you hired the pros to do the job.

Whereas Viewlet Builder treats screenshots of what's on your computer's display as the individual frames of what will eventually be a Shockwave movie, ViewletCam can record anything on the display that involves motion (like an animation found on a Web site). Viewlet Builder provides the screen-shooting technology and the authoring tool to add, delete, re-order and even annotate frames. In the event of a software demonstration that you may want to post on your intranet for training purposes, it will even detect changes in mouse positions from one frame to the next and animate the mouse pointer's movement between the two positions. After saving the project and issuing the compile command, Viewlet Builder spits out a Shockwave file (in the SWF format) that be posted on any Web site, or distributed via email.

The technology is eerily reminiscent of IBM Lotus' ScreenCam, which, in the 90's, was the tool of choice for turning a sequence of events on your computer into a distributable movie. The beauty of Viewlet builder is that just about every computer (and even some handhelds) already have the Flash player plug-in necessary for accessing and playing the contents of an SWF file (Web-based, or locally stored on a hard drive). Before compiling an SWF file, Viewlet Builder even gives you a choice of output screen sizes that cover all of the common resolutions used by computers and handhelds.

The potential for this pair of products is virtually limitless when it comes to authoring rich content and distributing on the Web. Imagine, for example, using a video camera to record how to replace a defective bolt in an aircraft's wheel assembly, pairing it up with some still images and some text (in a Word document), adding an audio recording, and then distributing it around the world via Flash.

Qarbon also makes available two other companion products: Viewlet Farm and MeetingPlace iCreate. Viewlet Farm helps large companies manage the collaborative Flash authoring process with features such as version control. MeetingPlace iCreate can take any PowerPoint presentation, enhance it with any one of a library of animations, and then turn it into a Flash Movie. Interested in learning more? Get all the details at http://www.quarbon.com.

You can write to me at david.berlind@cnet.com. If you're looking for my commentaries on other IT topics, check the archives.