Flash on the Beach 2008

Yes, it finished!
FotB 2008 was really great, amazing speakers and cool people to spend great time together.
Last day there, I followed one of the most amazing session by Mario Klingemann; he showed how to build a QRcode generator with BitmapData in AS3 retrieving the image from a webcam… it was unbelievebal!
He also showed us interface of one software of Aviary, the great project where he is envolved with a lots of others great developers, this is a very interesting project made with Flex.

 I had a great talk with Richard Galvan, from Adobe, during FotB about Thermo, now it’s more clear for me how to create a real workflow with the introduction of Thermo when it will be released.

In fact, my problem, was to understand how a designer can organize and prepare all custom components or modules for the flex developer.
But, talking with Richard, I understood that the best  way to create a workflow with Thermo is:

  • first brief where developer explain to designers how to create assets
  • designers create static assets with an image editor like Photoshop
  • designers work with Thermo to create all users interaction
  • developer bring Thermo file and start to divide the application in the right way
  • developer create business logic of all application

It’s very interesting way to create RIA or desktop application… so now we’ll wait for an official BETA of Thermo.

Also I found very interesting Doug McCune‘s session, he talked about SWF decompiler and how to re-create and study algorithms made by others developer, in fact he decompiled Photoshop Express and use it’s algorithms to make DougExpress a fantastic Flex application totally customize that manipulate images like Photoshop Express.
Very interesting!

So you know, FotB was very amazing, next year it will be from 19 to 23 September in Brighton and in April for American audience, you can’t miss them!
Finally a big thank you to Zohar that gives me a CS4 T-shirt… Shortcut to Brilliant, thank you man!

Second day at Flash on the Beach 08… Flash 10 on IPhone

Second day is finished, but it was very intensive!
I saw lots of interesting session, first of all Mr. Aral Balkan that showed us how to have fun with our work and that we must take time to experiment and try new languages, very interesting session.

Then, my favourite, Adobe Town Hall, where they said: “Yes we are working on Flash 10 on iPhone!”.
I hope that they don’t put a “slim” version without important API like the newest that allow to work with local files with Flash Player in a browser.
I asked also if with AIR 2 they will solved the problem of interaction with others applications embedded on a mobile phone and if it update itselfs without download a new firmware… they said… “Open Screen Project solved the second issue and the first one… yes we are working on this way”.
Great news for mobile developers!

Then I saw Grant Skinner with a cool sesson about  what a Flash developer should know… 

Peter Elst talked about AIR api and show interesting things with Merapi Projects and Adobe AIR… the speech to text sample was amazing!

Lee Brimelow showed us about new Adobe product releases like Flex 4, new features of Flash CS4 and so on, it’s an amazing speaker because he show stuff with a fun.. like a joke… cool!

Tomorrow I will attend the last day, there will be lots of interesting things to take a look… Nicolas session for example… see you tomorrow guys

Flash on the Beach is started

Yesterday starts Flash on the Beach, the 4th edition, it’s more big, more interesting, more…

There are many guys from USA and other part of world and is fantastic because you can share and talk with all of them, I love it.

First amanzing news is that FOTB next year become also FOTBM… Flash on the Beach MIAMI in April, and this a big success for FOTB organizations, 4 years of great work and now they start to export own format, congratulations guys.

I followed great sessions yesterday, the most amazing were Tink one, that talking about Flex Effects, he are making a great job; Thermo and Flex 4 was very interesting, in particular when speaker talked about FXG format, I think a lots of thing about this interesting new way to define a FLEX UI.
In the evening there were 2 inspire sessions that were amazing, 2 great Actionscript artist showed us how to use Flash in different way to create great artwork.

So now I’m in a new FOTB day, at Aral Balkan session… he is a showman!

During this weekend, I’ll put some photos about FOTB in my Flickr account, don’t miss them!

360Max, an event in THE EVENT!

Today, John and Tom have revealed own partecipation during Adobe MAX in San Francisco with a particular event.

In fact they create an event in THE EVENT, so during MAX you can see 360MAX sessions also!
I’ll be speaker there and I’ll talk about SQLite API, in particular I’ll show how to save encrypted data, how to work with transactions and how to move your first steps with SQLite and AIR.
My session will be 19th November from 12.30AM to 1.30PM, you can find the schedule directly from 360MAX wiki.

See you there guys!

Next events until to the end of years

When September starts, there are so many events until to the end of years, it’s a magic period for me to find new friends, talking with developers and find “old friend”!
This year I put in my agenda a tons of them.
In the end of this week I’ll go to Brighton at Flash on the beach 08, the most inspire event for flash developers, this year I’ll find there a lots of friends like Piergiorgio, Zohar, Peter, Franto, Marco, Scott and I’m sure to find my belgium and australian friends that I met last year at FotB very cool time spent with them.

Then I’ll have SMAU, the only IT event in Italy, where we are there to show Let’s course, our traning project with Thomas and Tiziano for all event days.
There we’ll make 2 sessions per day, totally free in our stand.
We’ll show interesting tips & tricks of Photoshop, Illustrator, PHP, Flex, AIR and… a very very big argument… but I can’t say it now.

In november there is Flex Camp in Italy made by actionscript.it Italian Adobe User Group, this year there are a lots to talk about Flex and AIR and I’m sure to find very cool italian flex developers.
If you are interested to take part of this event, it’s totally free, you can register yourself at Flex Camp form.

The least but not the last… ADOBE MAX in SAN FRANCISCO…

I think that I must not talk about this event… this year in San Francisco, my first time in California, and I’m sure to find tons of developers and people that love this job like me.
I bought a pre-event session on Blaze DS and Livecycle, I’ve not worked yet with them so I think is a good opportunity to start learn them in depth. 

Probably I’ll go to Adobe MAX in Milan also, but only for a day… there are too many events in few time… but I must meet Matt and other guys that come here from all Europe!

So, you know, too many events, too many opportunity to share skills and find new friends.
If you find me in one of those events, please feel free to stop me!
See you there guys!

My last 2 posts about SQLite in AIR cookbook

In last weeks I spent a lot of time to work with SQLite in AIR for a course that I made in an italian company, so I decide to create a couple of posts in Adobe AIR cookbook about transaction with query and how to works with existing SQLite database included in an AIR application.

You can find in AIR cookbook  section in Adobe.com site.
In those posts you’ll find full HTML/Javascript and Flex/Actionscript samples.

I suggest to use this great section to share your AIR or Flex (there is also Flex cookbook section obviously)  skills and experience with all developers community.
For any kind of suggestions or comment, please contact me directly.

New Flex resource: flexets forum

Today is my last at work, from tomorrow to 23 August I’m on holiday.

But before to go on holiday, I want to share with you a new resource made from Franto that is a new Flex forum where you can talk about Flex, AIR and actionscript 3, share your knowledge with other developers and so on.

It started a couple of days ago so there are few people now, but I’m sure that could become a great resource for all Flash Platform developers.

Flexest launches also a service called Coaching forum, where new developers has a traning coach on Flex, AIR or Actionscript that helps to learn this stuff.
If you have few minutes during this holiday period, take a look and register in this community to start share your Flex exeprience! see you there guys!

My 2 cents about Let’s tour

Yesterday Thomas, Tiziano, Samuele and I finished Let’s tour.
Let’s tour was a tour around 5 Italian cities (Turin, Florence, Milan, Padua, Verona) where we showed what a team do when work together with new technologies in the same project.

In fact we made this session during this tour:

9.30AM – PHP & Framework how to make a web form with a MVC framework

10.00AM – Flash Lite: create a mobile experience to register yourself for an event

10.30AM – Illustrator: how to create dynamic content with Illustrator

11.00AM – AIR & Flex: working with web data and export them for Illustrator and Photoshop

11.30AM – Photoshop: working with external data

12.00AM – PHP: how to create dynamic PDF for mobile & print

We met a lots of people, developers, designers and account too, and we understand that in Italy we MUST talk more about those technologies from university to big company, because there are so many people that are interesting to grow up with those technologies!
I was so surprised when I asked in Florence, at Master of Multimedia, how many people knew Flex or AIR… I think that 80% of them knew those technologies and it’s GREAT!
They appreciate a lots this kind of event in particular they love the informal but technical way to show stuff during our sessions.
We are talking to organize another one maybe and we are working to make a big international event that it takes part in Italy next year.
I must to say THANK YOU to all people that came during this tour, that help us to organize meeting room in cities, and I hope to make it again.
A big thank you to Let’s course guys that follow me in this crazy idea! I think we spent great time together.

RIAjobs is on fire!

I’m so happy to write this post, because I think it could be very useful to anyone that are searching jobs on RIA world!
In fact Peter Elst with others companies present a new site RIAjobs.org .
This site allow you to find jobs for Flash, Flex, AJAX or Silverlight developers and not only!!!

Take a look at Peter blog and discover this great project!
Cograts Peter very cool job! 

OOP with Colin Moock

Yesterday in Milan there was last date of AS3groundUP tour with on of the best AS developer of the world: Colin Moock!

It was the first time that I was attendee in a Colin’s session and… WOW he explain very very weel and in a clear way!
He also made very cool samples with “Stan” a poor tamagotchi system that it always died!
There were few people in Milan, I suppose 70 / 80 people more or less, I think that in this kind of event you can’t miss!!! Maybe only to go there and gave an acknowledgment to this man that  went around the world to teach OOP in very cool way.

So thank you so much Colin, I hope to see you again, maybe at Max or FotB or… next tour (AS4?!).

If you’d like to see what Colin explained in the last tour date, take a look at his preso.
I made some pictures that you can find in my Flickr account.