Flex

UPDATE: I’ve created a new version of Flex Paint with Flex 4.

It’s surprising and somewhat humbling to find out which of my blog posts are the most popular. There are some posts that I spend days on and they end up only being read by a few people. Then there are others that are simple, short, and to be honest kinda boring that end up being read by tons of people. My original Flex Paint blog is one of those simple, short but highly viewed blogs. I would never have thought that out of all my blog posts that one would be read by so many. Since it’s almost two years old and presumably being used as a reference by many people, I thought it would be useful to update it to use the new Flash Player 10 FileReference API to eliminate the need to send the image to the server.

Next week I’m off to a few more Java User Groups to talk about Flex and Java integration:

• Portland - April 21st
• Cincinnati - April 23rd

Also while I’m in Portland I’ll be speaking on April 22nd at the PDX RIA User Group about “Super fast, multi-threaded, number crunching in Flash”.

I hope to see some of you along the way!

While at Devoxx 2008 Chet Haase and I sat down with The Java Posse for an interview about Flex, integrating Flex with Spring, Flex Gumbo, and various other topics. You can listen to the interview via The Java Posse Podcast - episode #242, watch it on parleys.com (perhaps even using their awesome AIR app) or watch it right here. Let me know what you think.

UPDATE: There is a new version of the Refcard available:
Flex 4, Hibernate 3, and Spring 3 Integration

DZone has just published a new Refcard “Flex & Spring Integration” written by Jon Rose and me. This is the second Refcard I’ve written. The first was “Very First Steps in Flex,” which was a few chapters from First Steps in Flex written by Bruce Eckel and me. Working on the Flex & Spring Integration Refcard was fun because I was able to learn more about the new Spring BlazeDS Integration project from SpringSource. I’ve been really impressed with how easy it is to integrate Flex and Spring together. Another great resource for learning how to integrate Flex and Spring is Christophe Coenraets’ Spring BlazeDS Integration Test Drive. It contains a bunch of great examples that will help you better understand how to get everything set up and working.

Flex Builder is now free for not only students and educators but also for those who are currently unemployed! If you fall into this category - my sympathies - but hopefully by learning Flex you can get a job again soon. And since the Flex job market is super hot, getting a new Flex job shouldn’t be too hard. :)

All you need to do is go to freeriatools.adobe.com and (honestly) fill out the information. I hope this helps get you on your feet again!

On the road again… I’ll be talking about Flex and Java at a few more Java User Groups over the next few weeks. Here they are:

• Kansas City JUG - April 8th
• Madison, WI JUG - April 14th
• Milwaukee - April 15th
• New Orleans - April 16th

Hope to see you somewhere along the way!

The current state of the economy has every business thinking about cost cutting and higher productivity. This is fueling significant growth in the Rich Internet Application space. There are numerous examples of businesses achieving substantial return on investment from RIAs. For instance, Allurent, a company that builds RIA E-Commerce solutions, created a better web shopping experience for Borders.com that resulted in 62% higher order conversion. Here is a great video that goes into more details about what they did:

While I was attending the Java Posse Roundup 2009 I was able to give a 5-minute Lightning Talk about Flex. There are now so many amazing things to show with Flex that it’s really hard to narrow down what will be the most compelling. In past years I showed more code and useful things. But this year I wanted to just make people’s jaws drop.

First I showed the Tour de Flex application to encourage all of the attendees to go explore some great Flex components on their own. I also wanted to show off the new 3D APIs in Flash Player 10 so I showed Justin Everett Church’s Cloth Demo. Then I showed a prototype of an Adobe AIR based catalog for the Anthropologie women’s clothing store.

I’ll be at the TriJUG tonight talking about integrating Flex and Java in real-world applications.

On Wednesday March 18th I’ll be speaking at TheServerSide Java Symposium in Vegas.

And on March 24th I’ll be speaking in Miami at the Miami JUG.

Hope to see some of you along the way!

The Adobe Platform Evangelism team has created a DVD so that everyone can take the Tour de Flex! Included in the DVD is:

• Tour de Flex
• Flex Builder 3 Pro Trial (Windows and Mac, Standalone and Eclipse Plugin)
• Flex SDK
• Flex Documentation including ASDocs
• Spring / Flex Test Drive
• BlazeDS Turnkey and Binary Distribution
• BlazeDS Developer’s Guide
• LiveCycle Data Services ES
• ColdFusion 8.01 Developer Edition (Windows)

If you or someone you love needs to experience Flex…