Month: January 2010

Apple did it again…

It’s not possible, Apple did it again!!!

Another device without Flash Player or AIR runtime… I really angry!
They talk about a “full web experience” but you can’t think web experience without FLASH!
I know that they don’t want put Flash Player for marketing purposes, I know that if Flash landed on iPhone OS, tons of applications and games will be based on that technology, but it’s not possible to hide Flash content only for marketing purposes! I WANT FLASH AND AIR! AND I WANT THEM NOW!

I can’t imagine anything like this image, it’s not web, it’s a filtered web.

Ok, they are Apple Computer inc. and they can do everything but there is a limit, it’s like that one day, they decide to hide HTML 5 contents or other technologies… I’m only waiting for a new Apple press release that says: “Sorry but from today we block all Flash Player in macbook, macbook PRO, iMac and…”.

Guys we must start to spread the word and push Apple to change their point of view, so please join in this cause and spread the word!

How to prepare yourself for Flash CS4 ACE exam

Just passed! I become Adobe Certified Expert on Flash CS4!

Like Flex with AIR certification I’d like to share my experience to prepare yourself for ACE exam of Flash CS4.

First of all… EXPERIENCE! You must work, play and work & play with Flash CS4 IDE and Actionscript 3.
More experience you have on Flash development less you must study for the exam and you have more chance to pass.

Obviously, it’s so difficult to know everything about Flash CS4 from all IDE controls to Actionscript 3 and OOP so there are 2 books that could be helpful to solve this “issue”.

With those book you can create a good base to try ACE exam for Flash CS4 but, if you have read Essential Actionscript 3 could be better for Actionscript side and for your daily work ;).
Another good suggestion is to read Help guide of Flash, in fact Adobe made an impressive job on that guide and you can find lots of interesting stuff; you can download a guide PDF file directly from this link.

Try everything, from import PSD or AI files to prepare files for web or desktop application with AIR, because you may find some questions about AIR and own code syntax!

Finally test yourself before real exam with a very good service (I really appreciate it) like acequestions.com with less then $10 you can try how Flash CS4 exam works and also which kind of questions you could find in that certification.
That’s it! Take a look at Adobe site to read all information to become Adobe Certified Expert and… GOOD LUCK!

Memento Pattern in Actionscript 3 (UNDO/REDO)

Happy new Year everybody!

I’d like to begin 2010 with a design pattern argument.

First design pattern of this year is Memento pattern, that could be very useful if you are working on an AIR desktop application or in a Flex RIA and you want to make an history of user’s actions.
In fact this pattern is used to make undo and redo in an application.

Memento pattern is tightly coupled with originator object and it’s usually composed by 3 different parts:

  • memento
  • caretaker
  • originator

Originator is object that pass data to caretaker and it saved them in a couple of arrays (undoArray and redoArray).
So caretaker is an object that stores a memento snapshot and, if originator needs, pass undo or redo data to this object.

I prepare a sample to understand better what could you use Memento pattern in your applications (“view source” option is activated).
I wrote a Memento class with a Singleton to centralize all users actions,then I create a MementoVO that is a dynamic class to help me store data from each object used by the user, you could use a simple Object instead of a dynamic class to save more memory if you prefer.
Sample is very easy but useful for Memento pattern purpose, in fact you can move windows trough the stage and our “history” class (Memento.as) saves their positions when saveAction method is called by the originator (an instance of CustomWin).

Memento class has 4 essentials methods that are:

  • undo()
  • redo()
  • saveAction(_obj:Object)
  • saveRedoAction(_obj:Object)

I start from the end, saveRedoAction, last method, is used to save the position of a window before I restore its positions, usually Redo action is used only one time, but if you want you could create an Array and work with multiple Redo.

Another important method is saveAction that is called when mouse down event was triggered and it stores in memento class own old position and object itselfs.

First two methods need to undo and redo an user action, it’s easy isn’t it?!

I think that in this year I’ll share lots of those patterns with you to share our knowledge together so feel free to add comment at this post and we could make an interesting and useful conversation, I’m totally sure!

Review of “Confessions of a public speaker”

I’m so happy to make a review of Confessions of a public speaker because it was an inspire book for me that gave me tons of tricks and confirmed feelings that I’ve when I make speech.

Scott Berkun, the author, is a young guy very passionate about his job, he had a great past working for big companies like Microsoft in IE team and not only.
He wrote great books like Making things happen or The Myths of Innovation, I read only the first one and it was very good.

In Confessions of a public speaker you can find everything that you need to grow your skills like speaker, in fact Scott describes own feelings during particular situation, he talks about how to manage crowd in a room and how to create a connection with people in your room and this is only the beginning…
With his informal writing he shares with us own experiences and a part of him, I think is the best way to teach how to grow like speaker but also like teacher.
He dedicates a chapter to explain different approaches between a teacher and a public speaker, I really appreciate a lots because I found similitudes trough Scott’s book and last course for trainers that I took part last year.
For a teacher and speaker like me this book is like a light in the hell that give me new motivations to do my job better and explain me how to prepare myself in a new way that could give me opportunity to make better speech and give to people more.

I suggest to everyone to have a copy of this book that you are a public speaker or an account of a company, it really help you to prepare better an important appointment and to create a connection with you audience.