Brady White - Flex & Life

Adobe just produced Tour De Flex an AIR app that allows you to tour all of Flex’s features.  Great for those who are curious about what flex can do.  For developers, this tool is great because it allows you to actually see the code to produce the feature that is shown.

Adobe states that Tour De Flex has three primary features:

• Provide non-Flex developers with a good overview of what is possible in Flex in a “look and see” environment
• Provide Flex developers with an illustrated reference tool
• Provide commercial and non-commercial Flex developers a place to showcase their work

Check out the Tour De Flex Web Site

For those of you who want HTML signatures using Gmail’s web interface, there is a Firefox add-on that supports HTML signatures for multiple email accounts.

Download Blank Canvas Gmail SIgnatures

You must get an account with mozilla in order to download the add-on because it is an experimental plug-in. I haven’t had any problems with it.

Google G1 cell phone will be available on October 22, 2008.  The first true iPhone competitor.  I am sold on it once my contract with AT&T is up next February.

Features that I will love:

• GoogleTalk
• Google Maps with Accelerometer
• Gmail
• Google Calendar
• Google Docs
• Seamless Wi-Fi Connection
• Physical Keyboard
• Touchscreen
• Open Development Environment - I can make my own apps in Java and Apple won’t monitor it.
• Android
• $179 price tag
• My plan would be only $65 / month for a G1 with T-Mobile vs the $85 / month I’d pay for an iPhone with AT&T.

Drawbacks to the G1:

• T-Mobile does not have a 3G network in Provo or Salt Lake City.  There are “plans.”
• Its not an Apple product.
• 1 GB of storage compared to 8 GB or 16 GB on an iPhone.

Why it works for me:

I don’t need it to play my music, I have 2 iPods to do that.  I’m a Windows PC user and I don’t need to sync with Apple products.  I use all of Google’s products which are all integrated with the G1.  The main reason I don’t choose an iPhone is the monthly price point.  When you add up $85 for the plan that I need, you are paying $480 over the course of 2 years more for the same service that is on T-Mobile’s G1.

If you are in a non-3G area, you have to order the phone online.  They will not have them in T-Mobile stores in non-3G areas.

Not even considering a Blackberry, yuck.

In doing some research on filters in SVG I came across some new information regarding SVG. The reason that they have upgraded/changed focus for the SVG format to FXG was triggered when developing Thermo. They started using SVG and then they realized how difficult (and eventually deemed impossible) it was to easily translate SVG to Flash smoothly. So they developed FXG for Thermo & Flex 4 to replace SVG. Now we can just use FXG’s DropShadowFilter instead of copying the bitmap, offsetting it, applying a color fliter, blurring it, and then blending it.

What is FXG?
“FXG 1.0 describes an XML-based graphics interchange format for the Flash Platform. FXG contains high-level graphical and text primitives that can be used to create, group, transform and visually modify basic vector and bitmap shapes. The FXG rendering model follows very closely the Flash Player 10 rendering model and exposes all graphics capabilities of the Flash platform as well as offering expandable support to accommodate future capabilities of the Flash Player. The specification below dives into the technical details governing every element of FXG 1.0.”

FXG Specification:
FXG Specification Link

Blog Posts:
Mike Chamber Blog Post - Why Adobe Chose FXG Over SVG

Mark Ander’s Blog Post - Flash On The Beach - FXG & SVG

How to start playing with FXG:

1. Get Flex Builder 4 source and use it in Flex Builder 3: Download Nightly Build
2. How to
   • http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=build_6.html#162812
   • http://blog.vivisectingmedia.com/2008/08/binding-source-for-flex-4-in-flex-builder-3/

Finally a file format that Adobe can share across its programs that can easily be written and displayed.

Update 13-Oct-2008 - I originally stated that Adobe was no longer continuing SVG support, when really they are discontinuing support for the Adobe SVG viewer.  This article can be found here: Adobe Discontinues Support for SVG Viewer

Yesterday I was welcomed as an Adobe Student Rep for Rich Internet Applications. I am excited to get the Flex community going at BYU and educating other students about what Adobe Flex is and what an RIA is. Since I do this for work, I find it is easy to share my passion and my love for it with others.

I created a user group for BYU students. If you are a BYU student, join the group and enjoy the perks of being a member. You do not need to be an active Flex developer to join, you just need to be interested in what Flex is. I will be hosting an event this semester to get things kicked off.

Photoshop.com is the solution for online photo storage, photo back ups, and basic image editing in one location.  Photoshop.com hooks into all my facebook and flickr photos and allows me to make touch ups like remove red-eye.  Within minutes I had uploaded an album of pictures and had edited them.  I was then able to share this album with friends and make it public at http://satara.photoshop.com

Photoshop.com features:

• Photo Galleries
• 3D Carousel Photo Slideshows - They Look Amazing and will put a smile on your face.
• Photo Backup - Upload all your photos to one location. 2 GB for free account
• AIR Uploader - Desktop application that uploads your photos seamlessly
• Basic Photo Editing tools - rotate, crop, red-eye, adjust color, etc
• Syncs with Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket, and Picasa
• Embed Albums on web sites - like I have above

I highly recommend photoshop.com for all your online photoshopping needs.

Check out my Photoshop.com albums: Brady’s Photoshop.com Albums

Search of Craigslist for Passats in Provo

Craigslist Desktop Application was released by Cobalt Fire Software.  This application solves all the unusable elements about Craigslist.  CLDesktop improves the design of Craigslist and utilizes its search features better.  You can save your searches and refer back to them.

Download CL Desktop
(Available for both Windows and Mac OS X)

http://www.cldesktop.com/

Grant Skinner created an amazing regular expressions tester which is available as a web application or as a desktop air application.

This application allows you to create regular expressions and then test them on the fly. I highly recommend downloading this application for testing your regular expressions. I used this to successfully debug some regex parsing errors taking an SVG into flex.

Download RegEx Desktop AIR Application
Live Web Application

Google Insights reveals that Utah searches the most for “adobe flex,” “flex 3,” “flex 2,” and “flex builder.”

Adobe Flex

Flex 3

Flex 2

Flex Builder

My buddy Bryce Barrand found that Orem is the Flex Capitol of Utah

My buddy John Anderson discovered that Utah is also #1 in search for web technologies such as PHP, CakePHP, MySQL, and Linux.

PHP

CakePHP

MySQL

Linux

Utah is definately one of the tech capitols of the United States.

Today I paid the $150 and took the Flex 2 certification test. I passed and am now an ACP - Adobe Certified Professional (add that to my Flash MX 2004 Certified Developer, MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional) and MOUS (Microsoft Office User Specialist) certifications).

Overall I found the test to be challenging. I wouldn’t take it without sufficient preparation. Here are my Flex 2 study preparation tips:

1. Attest - provides practice tests and quizzes. Some questions on the official test came from the questions found on these practice tests.
2. Lynda Free 7 Day Trial
3. Flex 2 Advanced: Using Data Services - a must because the average flex developer hasn’t used RemoteObjects or WebServices very much and the test is roughly 30% on these topics.
4. Flex 2 Beyond the Basics - great review of advanced flex topics.
5. Flex 2 Essential Training - great review of basic flex topics.

Obviously use the flex documentation as a reference over concepts that you are unfamiliar with.

Topics founds on the test that I rarely used include: IViewCursor, Flex Data Services.

Good luck.