August 10, 2008 at 7:46 pm · Filed under Actionscript 2, Actionscript 3, Books, Flash, Flex, OSFlash, SWX
I am super late in posting this, but the book in which I recently co-authored, The Essential Guide To Open Source Flash Development, was released toward the end of July and is available for purchase.
The book covers a completely open source work flow for Flash and Flex developers, as well as providing concrete examples and documentation for some of the most popular open source projects, including: PaperVision3D, SWX, Red5, Fuse, and AMFPHP. I contributed the chapter on SWX, featuring both mobile and website uses with the p.i.n.k. Sprits website as a case study. More details can be found on the Friends of Ed website. Marc Hughes, one of the main authors on the project, also has a good write-up on his blog.
Overall, I really enjoyed the experience of writing and hope to continue to do so in the future. If I learned anything, it is how much time and effort really goes in to these books -- I can't imagine what Colin Moock must have felt like writing the massive 1000 page effort that is Essential ActionScript 3.0. Just getting the 40 pages I wrote through the whole publishing system took over a month, including writing, technical and editing reviews, page formatting and proofing.
All of this has led me to start thinking about why as a developer I own such a large and ever-expanding library of printed material. The photo to the right is of my library of work-related books. Mostly reference material and inspiration, but all in print. To this day I still buy printed copies of books even when a PDF version is available. As a developer who helps create digital experiences, shouldn't I be trying to help expand the digital world? I doubt that I'll ever stop buying printed materials, but the notion is certainly one to think about.
July 29, 2008 at 11:39 am · Filed under OSFlash, SWX
I just posted over on the SWX blog about some recent updates with the project. If you have been wondering what has happened with SWX since the blog was last updated a few months ago, go check out this post.
Highlights include a solution to using the current AS2 version of SWX within AS3 projects, and SWX being featured in a chapter of the new Friends of Ed book entitled "The Essential Guide to Open Source Flash Development", written by me!
I will also be posting more about this on the SWX blog in the coming days, but I am starting an initiative to form a development team for an AS3 version. If you are interested in helping out with writing the necessary byte code, have started something similar on your own, or would like to help out in some other way, please post to the SWX mailing list.
July 17, 2008 at 10:07 am · Filed under Conferences, Singularity Web Conference
Aral Balkan just launched the Singularity Web Conference website this morning, and tickets are now on sale.
I have been looking forward to attending a conference without needing to fly across the world, and when Aral first announced this close to a year ago I was excited at the possibilities. Congrats to Aral for putting in the effort for the community to make this a reality.
If anyone else in Portland, Oregon would be interested in hosting a meet-up location, it'd be great to get a group of attendees together to watch the presentations, discuss, and network. Leave a comment below or use the contact form on my portfolio site to get in touch if you know of a good venue or would like to help plan.
July 8, 2008 at 11:19 am · Filed under Adobe, CS3, Design Inspiration, Fireworks, Flash, Illustrator, Tech
Came across http://unexpectedlyquit.com today and found it somewhat comforting. The premise: "Every time an Adobe application misbehaves I upload the error message."
I'm not one to bash Adobe Creative Suite - it does after all make me a living. But this site, in all its simplicity, makes for some great humor. Especially when, as someone who spends most of their working day in Flash and other CS3 applications, I have seen my fair share of CS error messages.
July 6, 2008 at 5:32 pm · Filed under Actionscript 2, Actionscript 3, Adobe, Flash, Flex, Tech, Web Apps
I just launched a quick 5 minute project:
http://whatismyflashplayerversion.com
As a developer, I get this question from clients all the time, so I thought it time to create a simple service where I could send them to check.
In the future I'd like to have the site automatically test to see if the version reported from SWFObject is the same as the latest version, and if not, provide a link (or better yet, Express Install) to the latest version. However, I'd prefer to not have to keep the latest version number updated by hand, so if anyone knows where I can find an official data feed (RSS, a simple text file, etc) of the latest general public release version, please post in the comments.
Enjoy!
July 3, 2008 at 3:44 pm · Filed under Flash on the Beach
The work-in-progress Flash on the Beach 2008 schedule was posted this afternoon, and since I bought my ticket the day registration opened, you can imagine how I immediately went to the site to check out exactly who was speaking and when.
As expected, it looks like this year's conference is going to rock as much as last year's. An amazing line-up of speakers, a great new hotel right next to the venue, and even the 'inspire' sessions have made their way back this year.
However, I have to take issue with one particular time slot in the schedule:
Why would you have three of the most active Flash community members present during the same time slot? All three of these are speakers who could easily fill the room, and I'm disappointed that I'll have to choose to only see one.
Maybe this is indicitive of how popular the conference has become that two of the best known developers (Grant and Peter), and a designer/developer (Dr. Whoohoo) who has contributed largely to one of Adobe's most innovative new releases, Switchboard, could only be fit into the schedule at the same time. If so, that's great for the conference... but it is still such a Catch-22 for attendees to have great speakers and no way to see them all.
Update: I just got an email from John Davey, who runs FOTB, and he has updated the schedule so these three do not sit on the same timeslot! Thanks, John -- it is reasons like your willingness to take suggestions from the community which makes the conference such a great success.
Next entries »
Powered by WordPress.
