Ted Patrick > { Events & Community } > Adobe Systems

Three days ago I posted on the call for speakers and session for MAX. I checked the database today and there were 120 sessions posted since last Friday. If you want to speak at MAX, you should post your session here.

From the looks of the session posted MAX is going to be really great this year.

Post your session!

Cheers,

Ted :)

WROX is working on a great series of book highlighting Flex and AIR. There are 5 new titles shipping and in development. The latest is "Beginning AIR" By Rich Tretola. Rich is a great developer and I would highly recommend checking out his new AIR title.



Congrats Rich on the great book.

Cheers,

Ted :)

This morning we launched the Alpha release of AIR for Linux and an updated Flex Builder for development on Linux. It is great to see Adobe providing both runtime and development support on Linux for Web applications using Flash Player and Desktop applications using AIR.



I am in Madrid at the onAIR tour today. I am going to be filming developers for the next episode of 30onair.com website.

Writeups:
CNET Article
ReadWriteWeb
Universal Desktop

Go Tux!

Ted :)

I am pleased to announce the official Adobe MAX 2008 Call for Speakers and Sessions. We are looking for the best sessions and speakers for MAX 2008 in North America, Europe, and Japan. I would like to encourage you to post a session that you would like to present or attend at Adobe MAX 2008.

We will be reviewing all sessions posted and make sure the best of these are at Adobe MAX 2008. I am looking forward to reviewing your sessions.

Thanks for helping making Adobe MAX 2008 the best yet!

Regards,

Ted :)

I am a huge fan of SlideRocket and Mitch Grasso and his team have done an amazing job. As an presentation editor it is comparable with PowerPoint and Keynote but is in the web. SlideRocket is also a great use of Papervision3d as many of the transitions are using the 3D ActionScript API that it provides. Better still when I saw video and animation on sides it really brought home the fact that this is Flash Player at its best.



Trial Account Sign-up

Mitch was kind enough to give me 250 trial accounts for readers of my blog. I am sure you will like the application, it is an amazing use of Flex 3.

Mitch amazing work!

Regards,

Ted :)

Several teams at Adobe have been heads down building some key services using Adobe Flex 3. One team is Photoshop Express and today they released publicly. The application is awesome and leverages the Flex framework to the fullest to create great online photo editing.



Congratulations to the Photoshop Express team, they have pushed Adobe Flex 3 very far and made something great.


Honestly, show me another technology that can even come close to this and I will eat my hat!

Cheers,

Ted :)

In June be on the lookout for FlashBelt coming to Minneapolis, MN. This is one of the up and coming Flash conferences and has grown wildly popular among the hard core Flashers. I met Dave, FlashBelt founder, last week in San Francisco and he got me a discount code for FlashBelt to share:





Ahhhh conference love!

Cheers,

Ted :)

Registration for WEDBU is nearing the end of the early bird pricing on April 11th. If you have not been to "THE WEBDU" you should, it is easily one of the best conferences I have ever attended. Aside from dinner and debate with Scott Barnes, there are tons of great sessions, the attendees really make this event special, and Geoff and Julie really do put on an amazing event.



See you at WEBDU!

Ted :)

Ryan Stewart, Kev McCabe, and myself are putting together Scotch on AIR in Dublin, Ireland on April 11th. The event is shaping up nicely in the wake of the onAIR tour being postponed in Dublin. I will be covering Flex, Ryan will be covering AIR, and Kev is planning to talk on CF.

If you are in proximity to Dublin, Ireland please come join us for a 1/2 day of sessions on Adobe Flex, AIR, and ColdFusion.

LOCATION:
The Westmoreland Bar(Google Map)
27 Westmoreland Street
Dublin 2

SCHEDULE - FRIDAY APRIL 11th:
12:00 - Lunch in the Bar *
13:00 - Ted Patrick (FLEX)
14:00 - 10 Minute Break
14:10 - Kev McCabe (COLDFUSION)
15:10 - 10 Minute Break
15:20 - Ryan Stewart (AIR)
16:20 - 10 Minute Break
16:30 - RIA Open Debate (One & All)
17:30 - Raffle, Close & Thank You
* Not Provided

REGISTRATION



See you at Scotch on AIR!

Cheers,

Ted :)

The team over at Immersive Media is using Adobe Flash Player and ActionScript 3 to deliver interactive video in 3D. This is the first time I have seen interactive video displayed in this format. You can turn the camera in all directions. It is like real life video in the fact that you can actually be looking in the wrong directions as the video content is all around you.

1. Press play below.
2. Pan the video around.



Great use of Flash Player and ActionScript.

Ted :)

360Flex is headed to Milan Italy April 7-9th. Having helped start 360Flex it is great to see the event make it overseas. Tom and John do a great event and giving it is focused on Flex, you know exactly what you are in for.

Tom sent me a 10% discount code for the 360Flex Europe below:



Go 360Flex Europe!

cheers,

Ted :)

Houston, we have a problem! Many readers of my blog are members on the pre-release site for Adobe software. Before Macromedia and Adobe merged the Macromedia email list forums were the heart and soul of the thriving user community. I personally lived on those forums and gave tons of feedback on early version of Flash 4,5,6,7,8 during the pre-release development cycles (maybe too much looking back). When the companies merged a new web based systems was put into production that made starting new threads harder. Here is the change:

OLD:
1. Send an email to flash@prerelease.macromedia.com

NEW:
1. Log into Adobe Pre-Release.
2. Click Forums
3. Click "The-forum-you-want"
4. Click "New Thread"
5. Fill out a form
6. Click send.

Now the new method looks easy but it has really added friction to creating threads and lowered the number of discussions dramatically. The "LEGO" list migrated from the old system to the new and has lowered traffic some 300+%. This is one of those simple changes that has cut off the voice of our user community to internal Adobe and I think it need to change.

It may seem trivial to some but I worry that essential feedback about our software was never sent as a result of this change. What essential feedback on CS3, Flash, Dreamweaver, Adobe Updater, Installers, Adobe AIR, Flash Player or Flex was never sent because of the friction added by the new pre-release system? I would be any sum of money that things would be better if this system were "email easy".

I have a unique perspective on this issues as a customer for 11 years (Macromedia, Adobe) and 2 years as an Adobe employee. What is awesome is that when development teams get direct feedback from customers, things turn on a dime. I personally have features in Flash Player, ActionScript, Flash and Flex that are there because I posted to a pre-release discussion list. It is scary to think we have lost this level of feedback from our user community because of a silly web form.

Here is where things change:
Please comment away on the Adobe Pre-Release Forums below!

Lead With Grenades!

Ted :)

FITC is coming to Toronto April 19-22 and if you have never attended I highly encourage you to do so.

Yesterday Shawn Pucknell gave me a 10% discount code for FITC Toronto below:


Please feel free to use the code for registration and see you at FITC Toronto!

cheers,

Ted :)

There are some great conferences in the ecosystem surrounding Adobe technologies but the awareness of these events is limited unless you know to go. Stranger still, Adobe does not do a good job promoting these events even though we sponsor many of them. From my perspective we are doing a disservice to our community and to designers and developers in not promoting these events on an ongoing basis.

Early this week many conference organizers visited Adobe San Francisco and we began the process of exploring ways we can better work together moving forward. I presented the Adobe MAX 2008 conference dates and talked very openly about our goals for this years and future MAX events. MAX as an event really does not compete with these events so talking only about MAX does the ecosystem a disservice. If we want the overall market for rich technologies to grow, highlighting these events is really low hanging fruit.

More to come,

Ted :)

Make sure to check out FlexRegistration.com it is the offical education site to get Flex Builder 3 Pro for educational use. The site was registered by one of our marketing team and is indeed an official site. I checked with folks internally and it is the site to use for registration, although I wish it was on Adobe.com.

So if you are in need of Flex Builder Pro for educational use, make sure to get a free copy.

Yes this is the professional version! :)

Regards,

Ted :)

Last week I started working on the Adobe MAX 2008 conferences and although they seem a long way off the team wanted to put the conference dates out there as early as possible:



I am knee deep in planning MAX this year and we have evaluated so much attendee feedback and are making the changes to make it better than last year. We are also making a special effort to highlight the ecosystem surrounding Adobe tools and technologies. This involves showcasing the best developers, designers, companies, products, and services leveraging Adobe technologies.

If you are interested in sponsoring Adobe MAX 2008, please contact me via email at ted@adobe.com.

Mark your calendars, MAX is coming!

Cheers,

Ted :)

Well my blog traffic has been growing very rapidly lately. Here are some base stats:

Nov-2007 88,471 page views with 66,059 unique users
Dec-2007 107,632 page views with 80,812 unique users
Jan-2008 111,745 page views with 84,911 unique users
Feb-2008 120,488 page views with 92,015 unique users

Considering I started 2007 with 37,037 page views and 28,602 unique users, my blog has really seen the hits this year. Also not I am only tracking pages, not assets loading.

It is a bit humbling to have an audience of this scale. I guess I am wondering how I can best use this traffic to help the Flex, Flash, AIR ecosystems to grow.

30,000 in 3 months, W00T!

Cheers,

Ted :)

The team over at Searchme.com has been busy. I last ran into Searchme at the first FlexCamp in San Francisco. They had a recruiter parked outside of Adobe that evening handing out job fliers for the start-up. Looks like they got themselves some good developers because the application looks great.



cheers,

Ted :)

In case you overlooked that new 'libs' directory in your Flex projects. Flex Builder 3 added a place to drag and drop your SWC files so they are automatically added to your project. Just find a swc, like FlexLib, Yahoo Maps AS3, AS3Crypto or many others, and drop them in that innocent libs folder. Come on, I dare you!

Once the swc is there all classes will be available in your project without touching the Project Properties dialog. W00t!

Whoever added this one to Flex Builder 3, I thank you!

Ted :)

There is a very nice cryptography library for ActionScript 3 and it easily support the widest range of protocols ( TLS partial ), certificate( x.509 ), algorithms( RSA, AES, DES, 3DES, Blowfish, XTEA, RC4, ECB, CBC, CFB, CFB8, OFB, CTR ), and secure hashing ( MD, SHA ) I have seen to date.

AS3Crypto Library

I used SHA-1 extensively in IFBIN and will be using SHA-256 in IFBIN2 for managing data uniquely and install signatures. In looking at AS3Crypto it supports all I need for handling hashing on the client side.

I am a big fan of secure hashing as it has so many uses in writing software. Most think about hashing with regard to security but it has other useful features. A hashing algorithm takes some data input and produces unique output of a certain length. Say you wanted to store files on a server based on file contents so there are no duplicates, you could take a hash of the data you are going to store and use the hash as the file name. The higher levels of hashing (SHA256 and up) have very low odds of generating a duplicate hash so assigning keys this way is very handy.

Enjoy the AS3Crypto!

Cheers,

Ted :)

If you find yourself working with data, you are bound to want to get a slice of a String. Most developers are aware of using positive integers with String.slice but I keep finding many are unfamiliar with using negative numbers.

Here are some examples:

var str:String = "Hello from Paris, Texas!!!";
trace( str.slice( 11 , 15 ) ); // output: Pari
trace( str.slice( -3 , -1 ) ); // output: !!
trace( str.slice( -3 , 26 ) ); // output: !!!
trace( str.slice(-3 , str.length ) ); // output: !!!
trace( str.slice( -8 , -3 ) ); // output: Texas

I find that slice is most handy because you do not need a length property, the length of the string is inferred when a negative index is used.

Truth be told I am working on IFBIN 2.0 on Adobe AIR and found myself in the String API. Here is one of the values:

var fileUrl:String = item.split( "install " )[1].slice(1,-1) as String;

This code reads like so:
Split a string into an array where "install " occurs and obtain the 2nd array value. Then slice one past the first character and one before the last to obtain the String url to pass into the "install" command.

Cheers,

Ted :)

There is a new download link for the Flex Skin Design Extensions & Flex Component Kit for Flash CS3. It seems that these were not included in the Flex SDK and are now posted for download here. The skinning support includes templates for Illustrator, Photoshop, Flash, and Fireworks.

Flex Skin Design Extensions & Flex Component Kit for Flash CS3

Cheers,

ted :)

A great new site update from Nike just launched called Nike Plus and support was added for uploading a workout from Nike+iPod to this Flash Player based RIA.

Some simple things to think about:

1. Works on 95% of internet connected machines today using Adobe Flash Player without an installation or update.
2. Works seamlessly across browsers.
3. Cinematic, interactive, and functional.

There is a ton of news today on Microsoft Silverlight but I have yet to see a real customer ship anything like this. Shoot even Microsoft (1,2,3,4) continues to choose Adobe Flash on their own website.

Nike created this independent of Adobe and they chose Flash because it just works and works well. Check out the site when you get a chance. You might also check out the Microsoft ForeFront site too, it is too funny, Stopping Ningas.

Here is a bit from the Nike press release:

Nike and Apple are working with major gym equipment manufacturers such as Life Fitness, Precor, Star Trac and Technogym to make their cardio equipment Nike + iPod compatible so health club members can easily track workouts on cardio equipment like treadmills, ellipticals, stationary bikes and stair climbers. Nike + iPod users will simply plug in their iPod nano into the equipment at the start of their workout to automatically record their progress. Users can then connect their iPod with their computer to upload the workout to www.nikeplus.com.

"The Nike + iPod experience revolutionized running. Now we’re revolutionizing the gym cardio experience,” said Trevor Edwards, Nike’s Vice President of Global Brand and Category Management. “We’re enabling people who go to the gym an opportunity to set goals, track progress, and compete in challenges with their friends and with other members of www.nikeplus.com. It’s a groundbreaking tool for people who want to maximize their workouts.”

It looks like the Nike+ipod will allow gym equipment to upload workout data to nikeplus.com. End users will see their workout progress in a Flash based RIA.



cheers,

Ted :)

We need a solid definition of "cross-platform" as I see this term being abused with many of the new rich web/desktop runtimes. I think "cross-platform" is defined by having 4 distinct characteristics:

Across operating systems and web browsers:

- Identical APIs (classes, methods, properties, types, and return values)
- Identical API behavior
- Similar performance
- Similar installation experience

Having identical APIs is an essential ingredient to any "cross-platform" technology. Even the most minor differences in the APIs within a runtime will force a developer to program towards a specific operating system or web browser. Developers want to make something once and know it will work everywhere without issue. Supporting identical APIs across operating systems and web browsers simplifies development, testing, deployment, and support. ( It also has an amazing side effect of lowering ongoing development and support costs! )



Certain technologies are championing the "cross-platform" name but are providing expanded APIs for specific operating systems and web browsers. These technologies are really only "cross-platform" in the APIs that are available everywhere and are poisonous in their intent. These sound very good but in practice all it takes is one API call to lock an application to a specific OS or web browser. This is "embrace and extend" in a nutshell and will result in many application that only work under the right conditions.



Similar performance is also a key area. It is great that things work on different operating systems but performance needs to be similar. It is a poor user experience for an application to run 50% faster on a specific platform than another. I know for a fact that lots of engineering work goes into making sure Flash Player performs similarly across different operating systems and browsers. Actually we implemented incremental garbage collection in Flash Player because browsers differ wildly in how and when they allocate memory to a plug-in. On some browsers memory is handed out like candy while on others it is given in 256Kb chunks up to a ceiling of 10MB total. Regardless of the browser in use Flash Player tries to make sure all application behave the same both in start-up time and during use.



Please be careful with "cross-platform" and its use. It is one thing to run on several operating systems or browsers but quite another to work identically. We need to be able to develop once and run identically everywhere, not develop many for each target OS/browser.

Cheers,

Ted :)