Flex, Flash & Fusion

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2010-04-19T14:38:00.001-04:00

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Book Exceprt: Application Performance Strategies

2009-05-26T15:49:00.003-04:00

Click here to check out an excerpt from my new book "Professional Flex 3".

http://www.cynergysystems.com/blogs/page/andrewtrice?entry=excerpt_application_performance_strategies

Available in stores in June, or on Amazon Today!

Coming Soon

2009-05-07T17:57:00.005-04:00

Professional Flex 3
1488 pages of Flex, coming very soon....

http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/WroxTitle/productCd-0470223642.html
http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Adobe-Flex-Joseph-Balderson/dp/0470223642

Yeah, I know the descriptions and images on those sites aren't up to date, but they will be soon.

Multi-touch R&D

2009-04-13T10:49:00.004-04:00

Here's a fun R&D project I was working on last week, using multi-touch with AIR. People have been asking "why not just use WPF"... I am well aware that I could have done that. My questions is "why not use AIR"? It was a test to see what you can actually do with AIR and multi-touch hardware. I'll either use a socket communication to a low level process, use WPF, or wait until AIR/Flash support true multi-touch before using using it in a real project, but it's always a good thing to know and push the limits of the technology you work with.

You can read my original posting here:
http://cynergysystems.com/blogs/page/andrewtrice?entry=adobe_air_windows_7_multi

Interview w/ Ribbit @ MAX

2009-02-11T12:49:00.002-05:00

I just stumbled across this today... I was interviewed at Adobe MAX 2008, at the Ribbit booth.

It's cold

2009-01-13T20:33:00.005-05:00

I took a photograph of the thermometer in my rental car this morning... This is 100% real. The only photoshopping is that the image was cropped. Definitely the coldest weather I have ever experienced.

That number is really negative twenty (-20) degrees Farenheit, which is also -28.8 degrees Celsius.

Geoblog - New Year's Fishing Trip

2009-01-08T22:11:00.013-05:00

Here' s the geoblog of a recent new year's fishing trip with my brother Doug and brother-in-law Charlie. We caught 2 decent sized striped bass (rockfish) around 23 inches, and a bunch of dogfish. Nothing was big enough to keep, but it was a fun time.

You can check it out directly in your browser using the Google Earth Plugin here:
http://www.tricedesigns.com/portfolio/geoblog/2009.01.01/

Click on an image to see details about it, including altitude, latitude, longitude, and time taken. Note: this requires the Google Earth plugin to work properly.

If you wish to view this directly in Google Earth, just load this KMZ file:
http://www.tricedesigns.com/portfolio/geoblog/2009.01.01/fishing_geoblog.kmz

If you're curious how I created this, check out my recent blog post on insideRIA.com where I explain how it was put together.

I had the catch of the day with this striper (rockfish):

Enjoy!

Blast from the past

2008-12-17T22:50:00.004-05:00

Here is a very non-technical blog post... It's a blast from the past. My friend Todd friend and I were discussing the good-old-days of playing music before getting neck-deep into the realm of technology. I did a Google search to see what I could find, and I managed to find two videos of my old band from 1998. Check it out:

An original song...

A red hot chilli peppers cover...

I was lead guitar (electric guitar, blue shirt, on the left).

Enjoy!

CAPFUG Presentation Online

2008-12-05T09:28:00.001-05:00

For anyone interested, here are the recordings for my presentation at Wednesday's night’s Capital Area Flex User Group ... or CAPFUG.

I gave the same presentation that I did at MAX, however I had more time so I went into further detail. The presentation is called AIR++, and is about pushing the limits of what you can do with AIR.

Part 1 shows some application demos and goes through code examples showing shared sessions/single sign on across web and desktop experiences. Part 2 shows hardware interaction techniques through a Java middleware tier (reading GPS from USB and visualizing the data in AIR using Merapi). Each one is about an hour long, so be sure you have time to watch them.

http://adobechats.adobe.acrobat.com/p40552620/ (part 1)
http://adobechats.adobe.acrobat.com/p11248689/ (part 2)

You can find my presentation online, with associated code examples here:
http://www.cynergysystems.com/blogs/page/andrewtrice?entry=content_from_max_air

Links

2008-12-04T10:15:00.004-05:00

I'm taking this opportunity to link to some posts on my Cynergy blog, which contain a lot of information and techniques. Go check them out!

First, all of the content from my MAX presentation is available online:
http://www.cynergysystems.com/blogs/page/andrewtrice?entry=content_from_max_air

And, a post on visualizing large data sets (upwards of 1 million data points):
http://www.cynergysystems.com/blogs/page/andrewtrice?entry=visualizing_large_data_sets

Adobe MAX Was Great

2008-11-21T18:18:00.002-05:00

Adobe MAX was a great time this year. I was able to meet a bunch of people in the community, share knowledge, and just have a good time in general. Thanks to everyone that made it all possible. The content from my MAX presentation is now available online at: http://www.cynergysystems.com/blogs/page/andrewtrice?entry=content_from_max_air

Enjoy!

(yup, that's me in front of the Cynergy booth)

Thanks for the pictures Tony!

Speaking at CAPFUG in December

2008-10-01T12:29:00.003-04:00

I'll be speaking at the Washington DC, Capital Area Flex User Group on Wed, December 3rd. I'll be giving the same presentation I'll be presenting at MAX. Come check it out! My session topic is:

Adobe AIR++
Explore new techniques in Adobe AIR development. This session will explore pushing the limits of the AIR experience, including integration of web and desktop experiences to provide a software platform instead of "just an application." It will also explore hardware integration techniques to provide additional capabilities to the AIR platform.

You can get more information and directions from http://www.dc-flex.org/

See you at MAX!

2008-09-29T15:29:00.003-04:00

It's official. I'll be representing Cynergy and speaking at MAX USA this year. MAX is taking place November 16-19th in San Francisco CA.

My session topic is:

Adobe AIR++
Explore new techniques in Adobe AIR development. This session will explore pushing the limits of the AIR experience, including integration of web and desktop experiences to provide a software platform instead of "just an application." It will also explore hardware integration techniques to provide additional capabilities to the AIR platform.

It'll be taking place on Monday, November 17 from 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM.

Come check it out!

Holy Cow! Google linked back to me!

2008-05-16T10:52:00.007-04:00

All I can say is "Wow!". I wrote a blog post last night on insideria.com about the new Google Maps Flash/Flex API. That example made it up to the Google Maps Demo Gallery !

This is really cool!

Update: Jun 23, 2008
I just had another example linked to by Google! You can check out my examples on Google at: http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/flash/demogallery.html?searchquery=trice&classname=

Ubuntu Got It Right

2008-04-25T08:48:00.003-04:00

I just installed the latest version of Ubunutu on my laptop (8.04, which was released yesterday), and for the first time in the 8 years that I have been dabbling in Linux, I did not need to do anything to install any drivers. It automatically recognized my graphics card, wireless network, sound card, etc... I've been a fan of Linux for a long time, but have always been hesitant to use it for my "main" operating system. I think that could change now that everything worked on the first try (w/o recompiling anything). I think this was actually even easier than installing windows. I'm going to evaluate it further, but its looking promising.

First Post from my EeePC

2008-03-25T22:12:00.003-04:00

The title says it all. This is my first post from my new Asus EeePC. ultra-portable computer. The keyboard is a bit small for full-fledged writing, but the machine is very cool. It is tiny, the battery lasts 4 hours, and its very powerful considering its size.

It weighs in at just 2 lbs, runs linux, and is smaller than a hard-back book. It has a 7 inch screen at 800x480. Its definitely not the 1680x1050 of my other computer, but still gets the job done. I can see lots of uses for this machine in the future. Now I just need to get the internet connection on my phone working...

Blogs, Books, and More!

2008-03-25T20:58:00.005-04:00

Yep, I've been up to a lot of writing lately. Not only have I been actively writing for InsideRIA.com, I've been working on books.

The Flex 3 Cookbook is about to go to print (if it's not there already). I'm a contributing author for this book, and wrote the chapter on "Communicating with the Browser". Go buy it!

We're moving forward with Professional Flex 3. I'm one of the authors for this book, and have a good bit to write still. :) It is going to be a very comprehensive book, with a solid group of authors. It should be available in the fall of 2008. You can read a bit more about the book and the team here:
http://www.joeflash.ca/blog/2008/03/the-professional-flex-3-book.html
(the information on Amazon about this book is wrong)

New Article on Devnet

2008-03-11T10:09:00.002-04:00

My article "Use ColdFusion 8 and Flex 3 to export visual components" was released yesterday on the Adobe Developer Connection. Go Check it out! This article shows you how to export visual components in Flex 3 using the ImageSnapshot class, which is much easier than the old "bitmapData.draw" method. This article also shows you how to serialize and store images on a ColdFusion server using Flas/Flex Remoting and CFFile, shows you how to generate image thumbnails using CFImage, and shows you how to embed the Image Snapshots into a PDF using CFDocument.

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/coldfusion/articles/screen_exports.html?devcon=f2

Enjoy!

What I've been up to...

2008-01-22T11:37:00.000-05:00

Things have been quiet on this blog lately, but that certainly doesn't mean I haven't been busy. I just haven't had the time to keep this blog up to date. Here's a few things that have been going on:

InsideRIA - I'm both honored and excited to be a part of this initiative by Oreilly and Adobe to cover the emerging trends of RIA. Go read it!
Flex 3 Cookbook - I just completed writing chapter 21 on "Browser Communication" as a guest author. Pre-order it now! It should be coming out soon!
Another book! - Yep, I'm one of the authors for a new Flex 3 book coming soon. It's still under wraps, but I'll be sure to post more info when things are ready to move forward.
Cynergy Labs - I'm doing some R&D for new projects at Cynergy Labs.

... and don't forget the day job! I'll try to post more fun stuff and code examples soon, but I make no promises. :-)

e-Seminar Now Online

2007-11-20T10:27:00.000-05:00

My e-Seminar presentation "Programmatic Visualizations in AIR" from last week is now online via Adobe at:

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=register_no_session&id=1137886&loc=en_us

You can also download all source code here. (All downloadable code is Flex-based. All of the e-Seminar's examples were ported to AIR, but the drawing API implementation is the same.)

Useful links for getting started with Flex 2

2007-11-20T10:13:00.001-05:00

I get asked all the time for any useful links for getting started with Flex 2. I have a ton of resources, but for some unknown reason, I have never put this up on the blog yet. These are great links for getting started with Flex 2 development. I'm sure I'll be updating these for Flex 3 sooner or later, but here goes...

Flex 2 Language Reference
http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/2/langref/index.html
This link goes to the reference docs for the entire Flex 2 framework. It is extremely helpful for learning the framework and the properties and methods for objects within the framework.
Flex 2 Style Explorer
http://examples.adobe.com/flex2/consulting/styleexplorer/Flex2StyleExplorer.html
This link provides a Flex application that will allow you to quickly and easily create style sheet definitions, and see the changes in real time, on real flex components. This is very helpful for quickly making something look good, if you don't have a user experience designer handy.
Flex 2 Component Explorer
http://examples.adobe.com/flex2/inproduct/sdk/explorer/explorer.html
This link provides a Flex application that will allow you to browse different kinds of Flex components. This helps you become familiar with the different components of the framework.
QuietlyScheming Chart Explorer
http://demo.quietlyscheming.com/ChartSampler/app.html
This has got to be the best example for Flex charting on the internet. You can see lots of different chart customizations, play with different data effects, and it has complete source code to achieve all of these capabilities. This one is HIGHLY recommended.
FlexLib
http://code.google.com/p/flexlib/
The FlexLib project is a community effort to create open source user interface components for Adobe Flex 2. There's a lot in there. you can see the full component list here: http://code.google.com/p/flexlib/wiki/ComponentList
ActionScript 3 Libraries
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/ActionScript_3:resources:apis:libraries
The Adobe Developer Relations team released a set of free and open ActionScript 3.0 APIs to help developers get started building Flex 2.0 applications.

RIA Permeates Pop Culture

2007-10-12T09:54:00.000-04:00

I was watching one of my favorite TV shows last night: The Office, and there was a scene that I thought was absolutely hilarious... The concept of RIA has permeated into pop culture.

The entire episode centered around the launching a web site as a new sales tool. The whole episode was great, but one of my favorite parts (which most people may not have noticed) was when Kelly (who is using the web site for the first time) says something along the lines of: "Its just so much fun to drag the paper into the shopping cart, it makes me want to buy more".

To see this in mainstream television was great. The premise of a Rich Internet Application (RIA) is not only to maintain state on the client, but, more importantly, it is to make tasks easier, and to give a better user experience. When applied to sales applications, it is supposed to help make the user want to buy more.

Showing her dragging & dropping items into her cart, and making that kind of statement goes to show that the concepts of RIA are not just for techies and user experience designers anymore. There is a new way of building applications, and it is here to stay... my TV said so. :)

Speaking at CAPFUG on Wedneday

2007-10-05T15:28:00.000-04:00

I'll be speaking at the DC Captial Area Flex Users Group next Wednesay (October 10th). I'll be giving my talk from 360|Flex on programmatic visualizations. Come by and check it out. I'll be going first, at 6:30 PM. For more information and directions, check out the CAPFUG website.

Mashup of the month?

2007-10-01T22:38:00.000-04:00

Apparently a mashup I did a while ago is getting some recent attention. I've never heard of MashupAwards.com, but they found my Zip Code Census Mashup. It was recently selected as the mashup of the month. I'm honored to be selected, but the funny thing is that I didn't submit it... So who did? If you have any ideas, please let me know. I've also released newer versions of the census mashup, but they must not have made the cut. ;)

Programmatic Visualizations Now Online

2007-10-01T22:22:00.000-04:00

My presentation from 360 Flex is now available online. Be sure to check it out here...

Andrew Trice - Programmatic Visualization: Real world application of the drawing API for business...

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