May 5th, 2008
Howdy,
There are some important upcoming events in Polish Flex community:
- FlexCamp, 1st July 2008, Cracow, Poland. I will be on the spot, probably showing some of our work done with Adobe Flex and AIR. Make sure to check this site (sorry, Polish only).
- AIR Tour Europe, 6th July 2008, Warsaw, Poland. There are some great names from the community to come, like Serge Jespers, Mike Chambers, Lee Brimelow and more... Anyway, see you on the spot. You may want to see event's website.
There are some nice things going on around, so keep your fingers crossed 
Cheers,
W.
admin |
Events, Flex, Workshops |
April 16th, 2008
Howdy,
Adobe has published document called "Flex SDK Coding Conventions". A very long list things to read about, including:
You can compare it to the version created by Fabio Terracini and enhanced by me. I will look forward to enhance my own document of some stuff figured out by Adobe and then adding more advanced topics, like testing, some design patterns etc.
Cheers,
W.
admin |
Flex |
April 14th, 2008
Well, it's great news - my project, Vattenfall Home Energy Calculator, has received Webby Awards Honoree 2008. The project was among the best in the category "Rich Media Advertising: Business to Consumer". Client is happy, Making Waves sales guys are drinking champagne and me - well, I'm just proud to see my work there
I was responsible for all the Flex part in the project (read about the project in the showcases part of my website). The team was great (thanks all to you guys!!). We have created this project in Making Waves Poland.
I was delighted to read:
It's never easy to stand out in a crowd, but successful Interactive Advertising does just that. In it's first year, the Interactive Advertising Winners, Nominees and Honorees show how a great idea and solid technical execution can successfully work hand-in-hand on the Internet.
As a result of the superior quantity and quality of sites entered, the 12th Annual Webby Awards recognized sites and teams that demonstrated a standard of excellence.
Of the more than 10,000 entries submitted to the 12th Annual Webby Awards, fewer than 15% were distinguished as an Official Honoree. This honor signifies an outstanding caliber of work. Congratulations to all of our Official Honoree selections!
What are Webby Awards?
The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. Established in 1996 during the Web's infancy, the Webbys are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities.
The Academy is an intellectually diverse organization that includes members such as musicians Beck and David Bowie, Internet inventor Vint Cerf, political columnist Arianna Huffington, Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser, "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening, R/GA Founder and Chairman Robert Greenberg, Virgin Atlantic Chairman and Founder Richard Branson, and The Weinstein Company Co-Founder Harvey Weinstein. Members also include writers and editors from publications such as The New York Times, Wired, Details, Fast Company, Elle, The Los Angeles Times, Vibe, and WallPaper. The 11th Annual Webby Awards received over 8,000 entries from over 60 countries and all 50 states and generated over 750 million media impressions worldwide.
Reflecting the tremendous growth of the Internet as a tool for business and everyday lives, the 11th Annual Webby Awards expands the mission of the Webby by honoring excellence in over 100+ Website, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video, and Mobile categories.
Thanks again to all who made it possible!!
Cheers,
W.
admin |
Varia |
April 12th, 2008
Adobe has published more even information on features of Flex 4 codenamed Gumbo - read original information here. As subtitle says, the news covers now part "Design in mind". Yes, graphical design.
First thought - great news. Applications made by Flex developers often have standard skin layout without any changes, even through CSS. Therefore it seems that we'll see Thermo launched with Gumbo.
Second thought - can't wait to see if there will be some more mature features for developers. We need to await for more details on "Accelerated development", "Horizontal platform improvements" and "Broadening horizons". Better refactoring, better tests, better code hinting? Maybe - not confirmed, yet. There were some rumors about adding Cairngorm code generator into Flex Builder. That would be nice.
Microsoft prepares really big offensive with Silverlight. Simple: Adobe has more experience with design, Microsoft with development techniques. What I believe Adobe can do is - catch up with the framework itself to meet up the standards while adding even more design pimp-my-app features. Like Thermo.
Cheers,
W.
admin |
Flex, Varia |
April 8th, 2008
I must admit it gives a lot of thoughts how to design applications, that in a special way includes RIAs....
admin |
Varia |
April 7th, 2008
Finally after HUGE delay I have received my own copy of Flex Builder. You can compare that package has involved as well
BTW, I have received Flex Builder 2 more than one year ago with the highest security possible when it comes to software. I had to sign that I won't be using it against anyone with terrorist purpose (God, why are you doing this to us America?). So that's why you can see "Military" sticker, as it was categorized as military product due to some algorithms used in Flex and Eclipse.
admin |
Flex |
March 22nd, 2008
During my presentations, trainings and everyday life as Flex team leader it came clear that for real development we need standardization of coding approaches. This standards helps understanding of code, use of design patterns, maintaining project during development and further product life and - as probably the most important - parallel development. I have found document created by Fabio Terracini as the most suitable. However, for many developers it may lack for some parts. Therefore, basing on the document created by Fabio I have created my own version extending original document by topics:
You will find this document in Download section of my website, therefore - go and have a click. Any comments are really welcomed.
Best regards,
W.
admin |
Cairngorm, Flex, Tutorials |
March 15th, 2008
Howdy,
Here is something you should definitely click by "Image Manipulation in Flex by Andrew Alderson".
Great article covering matters of loading image data, adjusting colors, applying various effects, rotating and flipping, cropping, panning and zooming.
Personal update:
I am finishing polishing my Yahoo Maps libraries, therefore I will upload them soon. Also I am writing series of articles on Adobe Cairngorm best practices. I have held several presentations and trainings lately and many questions were asked - I would like to share the answers.
Best regards,
W.
admin |
Flex, Tutorials |
March 2nd, 2008
Hi,
Currently I am working on a quite big project strongly based on mapping as one of the main features. As map engine I have decided to choose young Yahoo Maps Flash API due to its Flash origin and specification.
The Yahoo maps API itself is rather easy and nice to use, therefore I'm pleased with my choice
I have written some useful and reusable wrap-ups for its classes to use in Flex directly as MXML components (not a big deal - just some updateDisplayList, some styling, easy adding Markers and stuff like that - but you won't have to work on it once again). I am planning to open special page on my page for the code that you might need to use. When I finish the project itself (give me couple of days), I will comeback to this idea.
Hope that you'll find it useful.
Best regards,
W.
admin |
Flex, Libraries |
February 27th, 2008
Howdy,
February was quite a busy month when it comes to presentations, workshops and meetings. You could met me:
- 13 - 15 February 2008 - Oslo, presentations and short workshops related to RIA business opportunities (presentation for sales people, designers, interaction designers - for better understanding what's happening nowadays) and introductions to Adobe Cairngorm microarchitecture.
- 19 February 2008 - Cracow, internal Making Waves Academy, presentation related to mentioned RIA opportunities, mainly addressed to .NET developers.
March probably will be even more busy, for sure you'll be able to meet me at:
- 1st March 2008 - Cracow, official 2nd meeting of Adobe Flex User Group. I am pleased of possibility of presenting introduction of Adobe Cairngorm (and comparing it to Pure MVC).
(date unknown yet) - Oslo, 2-3 days workshops of: general approach when creating basic architecture draft, thinking with UML in Flex projects, transforming those thoughts into Cairngorm parts and finally creating full Cairngorm code of the application.
Furthermore I was asked by Pawel Cichon to involve in creating Flex community aroud Flextech.pl, which is great idea indeed due to fatal knowledge of Flex environment in Poland. We are really facing Microsoft offensive at Polish universities, which are "producing" extreme numbers of .Net developers while loosing focus on other promising (Flex, Ruby) or well known and proofed technologies (Java). Therefore the more buzz we generate - the better. Still - Polish universities were always known for high quality of scholarship and eruditeness while training engineers
Best regards and see you on the meetings
W.
admin |
Flex, Meetings, Workshops |
