i picked up a copy of flash a couple of months back and i've gotten the hang of the basics of the program. but i was wondering if there were any websites that had instructions/tutorials/tips for improving my animation. i've seen shorts like "nightmare city" and i'd really like to learn how to do the advanced effects i've seen in short of that caliber.

I haven't seen good online flash tutorials. Most of them looked amateurish to me, unusable or overly complex.
Better dig the docs themselves, and study the flashes you like with a swf disassembler. If you hit a specific snag, ask for help in a dedicated forum on how to solve it.

I've found the best way to do soemthing isn't to go through a whole bunch of tutorials. instead, think of something in your mind that you want to create. then go out and create it. when you get to a part of the animation that you don't know how to do, then seek a tutorial to do that specific thing. and overtime you'll just accumulate everything you'll need to know. that's what I do with photoshop. granted i'm still quite ameteurish at it but it's enough to get me by ^^

good advice. but what about the non-creative stuff like making an effective preloader, loading all my elements before the movie starts, etc...?

The official docs include a preloader. But yeah, if you find a fancy preloader, feel free to use it. Make sure that the code of that preloader is okay, tho. Some preloaders out there have crappy code.

>>2
This advice sucks so, so bad.

The tutorials available on the internet are of decent quality that you can learn most of the beginner and intermediate concepts, even some advanced, with acceptable ease. Combine them with asking questions on forums as you go along and you'll do fine

ok.... but my original question being where's the best place to go to get this information?

Maybe here? http://www.echoecho.com/flash.htm