Flash variable indicating number of unread emails

Hi all

would anyone beable to help me with a little flash variable. not sure how this works, just been asked to do it, doh!

What I am trying to do.
I have an email icon that when there is new messages would like to indicate the number of emails that are unread. this will simply be a number, that indicates how many unread messages

passing in the number of unread messages to the flash object like a URL request string.

would anyone beable to explain how this is done with an AS2 script example, or direct me to any technote

many thanks for your help