Category Archives: Community

Having fun with Adobe AIR

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Hi All,
this post will be in Italian, in particular is dedicated to the whole community of Italian mobile developers.
Having fun with Adobe AIR is a free event in 6 different Italian cities where people will learn how to create or improve own cross platform applications made with Adobe AIR for mobile devices.
For any question feel free to leave a comment to this post or drop me an email.

logoOfficial

Ciao a tutti,
mi chiamo Luca Mezzalira e sono l’organizzatore di “Having fun with Adobe AIR” un evento dedicato a tutti gli sviluppatori mobile che vogliono avvicinarsi ad una tecnologia cross-platform, come Adobe AIR, per la realizzazione delle proprie app o game su smartphone o tablet.
In collaborazione con alcuni importanti sponsor, come Adobe e BlackBerry per esempio, che ringrazio innanzitutto, sono riuscito ad organizzare 6 tappe in giro per l’Italia dove in una giornata andremo a scoprire le potenzialità di Adobe AIR, andremo a sviluppare degli esempi pratici che possano far vedere il workflow per la realizzazione di un’applicativo mobile.
Infatti l’evento è basato sulla formula BYOL (Bring Your Own Laptop) dove ogni participante dovrà portare il proprio computer con installato Flash Builder dove potrà creare i proprio applicativi e installarli poi nel proprio tablet o smartphone.

Se ti stai chiedendo se è una perdita di tempo perchè Flash è “morto”, beh credimi, non è così.

Infatti Adobe sta continuando a sviluppare questa tecnologia dando nuove potenzialità per la creazione di applicativi mobile e desktop, dall’accelerazione in GPU all’integrazione con Native Extension e molto altro ancora!

Durante l’evento avremo la fortuna di avere con noi degli speaker Adobe, in alcune tappe, che ci daranno la possibilità di scoprire su cosa si sta concentrando Adobe e quale sarà il futuro della piattaforma.
Un evento totalmente gratuito che credo possa far piacere in Italia a molti sviluppatori che vogliono iniziare a muovere i primi passi nel mondo mobile oppure quelli che già ci lavorano ma vogliono alternative valide con cui sviluppare.
L’evento avrà un massimo di 20 partecipanti circa per tappa e sarà di una giornata, le città in cui si svolgerà saranno Milano, Torino, Bolzano, Padova, Firenze e Bari.
La registrazione è obbligatoria e dev’essere fatta tramite il sito dell’evento: http://www.havingfunwithadobeair.com/
Se invece preferisci seguirci direttamente sulla nostra pagina facebook ecco l’indirizzo: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Having-fun-with-Adobe-AIR/430003473713246

Per qualsiasi dubbio o domanda non esitare a contattarmi via email o lasciando un messaggio su questo post.
Spero di vederti ad una delle tappe del tour!
A presto

Luca

mPresenter 2: become a baker!

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Hi All,

Today I’d like to share with you my IndieGoGo campaign to raise $35.000 for mPresenter 2.
mPresenter is a cross-platform software composed by 2 different tools: a mobile manager and a desktop viewer.
It helps you during own presentation to your boss or clients, during a public talk or only when you want to show your holidays photos to your friends.
It’s totally free (7.000 downloads from the stores) and it’s available on Android and iOS marketplace; the desktop app is downloadable directly from the mPresenter website.

With the new release I thought to deliver 2 new main features: mPresenter client to deliver slides trough P2P connection (goal to 15.000 bucks) and the other one is port mPresenter (client and editor) to tablet with a new stunning GUI !

I’d like to take your attention to the $3.000 donation where we customize a special version of mPresenter for your company with a skin dedicated to you, I think a good idea to have a different tool for work force to show products or service, for example, with a cheap investment
if you have any question, suggestion or anything to say me, feel free to contact me directly via email or leaving a comment to this post.

Thank you for your time and thank you in advance if you’ll become my baker!
Thank you also to anyone that decide to spread the word on social networks :P

I tell you a story…

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Long, long time ago there was a company called Adobe that changed the aim of a great platform like Flash, so Flash became from “write once, run everywhere” to a platform where developers could create games, mobile apps and desktop apps but not everywhere.
But a day Adobe decide to collaborate with Microsoft to create a Flash Player with amazing performance on tablets and on desktop too, and that moment my brain started to imagine a new future, maybe impossible, maybe a nightmare or maybe a dream…come with me in this fantastic story!

We can start with Adobe side, they donate Flex framework to Apache foundation, so MXML, FalconJS, Blaze and so on are now in this great foundation where communities are working on the new release of Flex framework 4.8.
Adobe is working a lot on HTML5 and JS side to create new tools for designers and they are moving fast on mobile side too with Phonegap.
Adobe stuff are mainly (or trying to be) cross-platform, so contents made with Adobe solutions work on Android, iOS, Mac OS X and Windows.

In the other hand we have Microsoft with C# (that is powerful and easy to write for a Flash Platform developer with good skills in development), XAML (the Microsoft answer to Flex), WPF, XNA and Silverlight; an ecosystem dedicated mainly to Microsoft OS from desktop to XBox.
Microsoft is trying to promote JS on develop contents for its new operating system: Windows 8.
Microsoft has Expression Studio that is the “poor baby” for a web designer that is more comfortable with Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash so with the Creative Suite!

Last week everybody read about the Adobe and Microsoft partnership for delivering Flash Player on Windows 8 (desktop & metro), but if they are working on that, maybe a day they’ll talk about AIR… this is they key of the story.

Try to imagine.

Adobe has a total penetration of Flash Player on desktop, with AIR you can work easily on desktop and on iOS, Android and QNX OS (BlackBerry one) then they are working on new tools for the future of web on HTML 5, CSS3 and JS like Muse, Edge and Dreamweaver too.
Microsoft has a lot of money they don’t have a cross platform ecosystem (there are some third party solutions like Mono but are not the same), they have strong technologies and partnership (Nokia for example).

And what do you think will happen if Microsoft plans to buy Adobe?!

Imagine a day where a developer using Visual Studio and writing C# and XAML could define to export own project on desktop with AIR, or better on mobile OS or in a browser in HTML5 with the same (I mean the SAME) base of code, same tools of development and an amazing integrating workflow from the idea to the software delivery…so WOW!!!
Bringing the powerful of Microsoft and the smart technologies of Adobe could be an amazing opportunities for both companies, and for developers too, to innovate in the best way ever the multimedia era.

This could be a real dream… what is missing now, probably, is to find a driver that lead the multimedia scenario because everyday we receive tons of emails about new framework, new technologies, new programming languages and developers are scared to bring a direction because probably it will not be the right one, probably next week or next month they will have to study another one and another one again…

Dear reader, try to imagine a world where you can really focused on create the silver bullet software, without think which will be the new JS framework or which are the new features of the latest Flex release… a world where you have only to think about contents in the best… maybe it could be a dream or maybe could be a the best place to live… sorry… to code.

UPDATE

There is another fact that I remember only now… by the end of 2010 Adobe and Microsoft CEOs meet in Microsoft headquarters to talk about what?!
It could be another indication of my conspiracy theory… maybe we’ll have some surprises next year!

Speaking at WHYMCA about Haxe for Flash Platform developers

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Hi Guys!
I’ve a good announce to share with my followers, next 24-25 May in Bologna will take place WHYMCA a great mobile conference where I’ll be speaker with Piergiorgio Niero and we’ll talk about Haxe for Flash Platform developers.
We’ll discuss on why we choose Haxe instead JS or other languages, we evaluate differences between Haxe and AS3, we’ll show pros and cons to use Haxe, we’ll show you how create content with Haxe for JS, Flash, Android, iOS and so on.
Finally we give you some tips to getting started with Haxe :D

So we are waiting for you at WHYMCA! see you there guys!

UPDATE:

This is our session about Haxe during Whymca in Bologna:

Flash Platform Galaxy: why choose Flash Platform

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In those days I’m reading a lots of mailing lists, forums, blogs and so on where Flash Platform supporters are so disappointed about the latest marketing movement of Adobe.

In fact yesterday Adobe announced that they stop the development of Flash Player on Mobile devices (on Desktop they are going ahead).
The road is clear HTML 5 inside the browser and Flash Platform for RIAs, Games and out of browser in combination with Adobe AIR.

For me Adobe for the second time (the first one was during Adobe MAX) has totally mistaken how to communicate this news and obviously tech blogs bring this announcement like the end of Flash…
Personally I don’t think that is the end of Flash but I think that Flash is moving on a new position in multimedia world probably out of browser.
I’m an Adobe addicted, like you know, and in particular I’m a Flash Platform supporter, so I think that we have to move on and make something to spread the word about this foggy situation, guys, Flash Platform is ALIVE!
To do this, I start making a pdf file called Flash Platform Galaxy that could help people to have an idea of what is Flash Platform and why choose it ( I know, I’m not a graphic designer but I think it could be useful), if you want to add more informations or change something feel free to leave a comment at this post or drop me a line via email.
Let’s go guys, we have a platform to save ;)

Flash Camp Milan review

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Yesterday in Milan we had the Flash Camp about Mobile topics and then we had the Flash Camp Party at NH Hotel… really wonderful time.
Like you know, in Italy it’s not so easy to organize those kind of events because usually people don’t move to another city like other foreign countries but Flash Camp had a great success.
This camp was organized in the same place of WhyMCA the mobile revolution, an italian conference focused on mobile topics.
We had 50/60 people per session and I’m glad to say that my session had 80 people so I’m happy about this little success.
All the sessions surfed in deep about CG, design patterns, video optimization for mobile, flex on mobile and so on, so I was really excited to take part in this event.
My session was about Design Pattern for Mobile, I talked about 3 design patterns: Singleton, Observer and Presentation Model.
With a couple of samples (that you can download from this link) and few slides I made an application that run with the same base code on tablet and smartphone; this is an hot topic now on mobile world in particular on Flash Platform side.

In next few weeks I’ll make a post about Presentation Model to share my thoughts about this argument and how to use it in your project , but if you want to start with this topic, take a look at this great post on RIArockstars.

Finally I’d like to thanks the Flash Mind, Adobe Flash Platform User Group Italy, to give me this opportunity, WhyMCA staff for the amazing organization, other speakers of Flash Camp for great time spent together and people that came to talk with us during the Flash Camp and to the beer party too.
I leave also a link to some photos took during Flash Camp in Milan.

Flash Camp in Milan

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I’m glad to announce an interesting Flash Camp that will take place in Milan this month at 20 and 21.

All the topics of the Flash Camp will be focused on mobile side, so Flex for mobile device, iOS, Android and Playbook development, code technique for mobile applications, optimizing video content for mobile, design pattern and architecture for mobile project.
Flash camp will be hosted by the whymca the mobile developer conference, that for the second year will show the mobile opportunities not only with Flash Platform but with any technology could be use for mobile purpose.
The event will be in Milan in Milanofiori (Assago), you can find more information on whymca web site.

Back on the Flash Camp side, speakers will be:

Mihai will talk about Flex on mobile devices and how to deploy a content on multiple devices, in the afternoon he has a live coding session where show how to create a mobile application with Actionscript 3.
My good friend Fabio will talk about video encoding optimization for mobile devices, Andrea will show how to create a game cross-platform with Flash Platform and Piergiorgio will give us great suggestions on how to optimize our code and improve the performance of mobile solutions.
Finally me, I’ll talk on how to organize a multiple screen development with Design Pattern and Architecture to re-use code and have great performance on mobile solutions.
For a limit number of people we are organizing a post event for the evening so try to come from the beginning of the Flash Camp and you’ll receive more information about it or keep update reading this blog.
See you there Flashers!!!

Adobe Community Professional for 2011

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I’m so excited to announce that I become Adobe Community Professional for 2011!
It’s my first time in this group and I’ve no words to say thanks Adobe and all the community staff that decide to get me in.
I hope this year to do a good job and I really want to meet other guys next MAX in L.A.
This 2011 will be for me and my company an year with tons of changing and becoming ACP gives me new forces to make them!
Thank you again to everyone :D

mPresenter, flash platform presentation tool

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mPresenter is a new tool that my company develop in last few months, finally is available to download.
Going in deep about this new solution, what is it mPresenter?

mPresenter is a cross-platform software composed by 2 different tools: a mobile manager and a desktop viewer.
It helps you during own presentation to your boss or clients, during a public talk or only when you want to show your holidays photos to your friends.
With mPresenter you can manage your presentation directly from your mobile device, you can draw or highlight on a slide, photo or flash file, change with next or previous content, receive comments that you add in content and so on.

You can download AIR version on mPresenter official website and Android controller directly on Android Marketplace.In next few days (I hope) you can find mPresenter mobile on Apple store too, so stay tuned for news about it!

Do you want watch mPresenter in action? Take a look at youtube video.

Do you want to have a free copy?! It’s easy, go to official website, add mPresenter banner to your blog or website and the first 10 people that add a comments to this post with a link at own website with mPresenter banner automatically win a free mPresenter copy!
Remember to leave in the comment your name, email and link to the site where I can find mPresenter banner.

Finally, if you are going to MAX in L.A. and you want to know more about mPresenter, you can find me there, so feel free to drop me a line to meet there.

I’m waiting for feedbacks and have fun guys with mPresenter!

Flash Platform Geeks: new community is born

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And YESSSSSS!

In this hot summer, I’m really glad to announce Flash Platform Geeks, a new Flash Platform community made in collaboration with Peter Elst!
Flash Platform Geeks is dedicated to all flash platform lovers like us!
Soon you can see online our website, our forum and so on, I’m really excited about this new adventure

It will be crazy, totally insane and if you go to Flash on the beach this year, believe  me, when I say that you’ll remain astonished!

So please, start to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr too!
See you around guys and thank you in advance to spread the word and follow Flash Platform Geeks