Please note - that I need to cancel the December 2nd Design Pattern meeting, since it looks like a bad time/date for us all as nobody RSVPed.

Silverlight vs Flex @ 6pm Tuesday December 9th at Railinc!

Ok, its not REALLY Silverlight vs Flex.  But we'll be having Ahmed El-Ramly, an ISV Architect Evangelist for Microsoft come in and give a presentation on MS's latest desktop and web UI technologies.  He'll show and discuss Silverlight and WPF and explain which design and development tools to use based on your role in the development process.

Adrian Pomilo will also be discussing bridging Flex and Ajax.  AND with the Adobe MAX conference recently, we'll have at least 2 people who attended and will be happy to discuss.  In addition, we'll have Adobe schwag and prizes including a raffle for $2100 worth of Adobe software.  PS....If you participate in our mini meeting you get some extra raffle tickets.

The meeting will be held at RailInc - 7001 Weston Parkway, Suite 200 Cary, NC 27513

Please RSVP if you can come!  And by the way - say which meeting you're coming too since I'm talking about 2 here!

thanks all

blog post by Phil Molaro

It seems like this is a big year at Adobe MAX. There are a lot of new and exciting packages, tools, and frameworks being announced. Here’s the quick list:

Bolt, Adobe’s new Eclipse based development tool for ColdFusion developers
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Bolt

Durango, a framework that allows developers to build customizable Adobe AIR applications
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/durango/

Flash Catalyst, formerly codenamed Thermo, is a new professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating application interfaces and interactive content without coding
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcatalyst/

Adobe Wave, an Adobe AIR application and Adobe hosted service that work together to enable desktop notifications (like Growl)
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Adobe_Wave

PatchPanel, a Flex library and set of services that make it possible for SWF files to work as Adobe Creative Suite CS3 and CS4 plug-ins
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/PatchPanel

Configurator, a utility that enables the easy creation of panels (palettes) for use in Adobe Photoshop CS4
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/configurator/

More on Centuar (CF 9)
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Centaur

Alchemy, that allows users to compile C and C++ code into ActionScript libraries (AVM2)
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/alchemy/

Genesis is the code-name for a new product initiative at Adobe with the objective of joining business applications, documents and the web on every knowledge workers desktop with integrated collaboration capabilities
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Genesis

Codename “Cocomo” is a Platform as a Service that allows Flex developers to easily add real-time social capabilities into their RIA
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/cocomo/

Stratus is a hosted rendezvous service that aids establishing communications between Flash Player endpoints. Unlike Flash Media Server, Stratus does not support media relay, shared objects, scripting, etc
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Stratus

UPDATE: Looks like we'll have to cancel this.  Nobody seems to have RSVPed, so maybe next time.  I'll assume that there's a lack of interest in having this discussion unless folks contact me and let me know.

Hello all!

I'd like to plan for another mini-meeting.  We were talking about gathering at the same place and talking Design Patterns for Actionscript 3 (or just in general is fine).

A few of us have bought Actionscript 3 Design Patterns by William Sanders and Chandima Cumaranatunge:

http://www.amazon.com/ActionScript-3-0-Design-Patterns-Programming/dp/0596528469/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224556439&sr=8-16

For those of us with the book, we'll be picking chapters/design patterns to read up on and talk about - and though we'd love it if you got the book, feel free to read up on the design pattern of your choice elsewhere and come armed with that!

Please RSVP if you can make it, and pick a chapter of the book and/or a design pattern and let us know what it is - and write it in the comments below!

We'll be meeting at  6pm on Wednesday November 5th.  This will be at Champions Bar: 10255-200 Chapel Hill Rd in Morrisville.  There will be Wi-Fi, so feel free to bring a laptop.

And PS...it looks like some go-getters are taking two chapters, so feel free to take more than one!

Meeting Time: 6:00pm on Tuesday, October 14th

Location: Railinc Corporate Headquarters, 7001 Weston Parkway, Suite 200 Cary, NC 27513

Hello everyone!

Our October meeting is just around the corner.  On Tuesday October 14th our special guest Matt Duquette from 12 Grain Studio will talk Flash:

A quick review of the Flash drawing tools, creating graphics in flash and image optimization tips.
Timeline based animations including -  Use of Easing and Filters, Animated Buttons, Animated Masks and Character Animations.
Sorry, no serious actionscripting skills necessary.

12 Grain Studio, co-owned by Matt Duquette and Laura Sargent, creates everything from animated load bars to product demos and unique Flash websites. Their client list has included global corporations such as Mattel, Fisher-Price, Birds Eye Foods and Rich Products but also their neighbors, friends and families. With rich backgrounds in fine art, the co-owners apply their sense of humor and design sensibility to the corporate world of the web.

Next up Adrian Pomilio:

Adrian Pomilio will be leading a hands on learning lab for creating a Flex based Twitter application.
The learning lab will incorporate techniques for reading and writing to the Twitter service through the Twitter API.  Covers basic HTTPService requests, as well as handling XML in Flex.  Skill level - beginner to intermediate.
Pre-req: come with a Twitter account and Flex IDE of some sort.

So there it is!  A great meeting!  Please comment below if you can make it.

NEW Information!

So in the interest of getting firm plans, I'm cementing this now.  We'll be discussing PureMVC (and any other frameworks you wanna talk about for Flex) at 6pm on October 8th.  This will be at Champions Bar: 10255-200 Chapel Hill Rd in Morrisville.  There will be Wi-Fi, so feel free to bring a laptop

See you there!  RSVP in the comments if you haven't already done so.

Thanks!

Hello everyone!

As I mentioned in the last meeting, we'll be having our next mini-meeting on Wednesday October 8th at 6pm!  Mini-meetings are small get togethers of like minded folks who want to bring their laptops and talk, show, and work.

We'll be jumping right into a hack night for our October 8 mini meeting.  A hack night is where we'll come together and explore one thing in a very thorough way.  And remember, any tutorials on Lynda.com is up for grabs, RDAUG has an account!

On this meeting we'll be exploring one of the following:

Flex Array collections

Exploring Frameworks like PureMVC or Cairingorm

Physics Frameworks for Flash

Bitmap tracing in Illustrator

(and we can of course meander off the subject based on our thoughts when we get there)

So I'm banking on beer or coffee - so my first suggestion is Champions Bars and More in Morrisville.  I've never been, but the photos look like we can combine tables and hang around, and there is free wi-fi.

http://www.championsbars.com/

The coffee suggestion is Hammocks coffee on TW Alexander Dr and Page Rd.  Again I've never been, but they also offer free wi-fi, and the photo on the website looks ok.

http://www.hammockscoffee.com/

So, please comment below if you can come - and tell us where you'd like to go, and what you'd like to study.  Majority rules!  If you have a suggestion that's not listed above feel free to mention it!