Those surveys are super huge for us. They give our attendees a chance to tell us what they think of the event. Often times people are brutally honest, and we want that. If you had a terrible time, we want to know about it and make the next conference better. If you had an awesome time, we want to know that too.

Besides that type of feedback, the survey gives us some insight into our attendee demographic. That helps us with sponsorships (Adobe likes to see how many new Flex developers we help bring to the community, etc), and with stuff like food ordering (we heard you guys loud and clear on that one)  and even shirts and other swag. The survey also helps us plan for the future; locations, sizes, etc.

As a way to say thanks for doing one last small thing to help make 360|Flex better, we pick two surveys at random (using Random.org to select a row number) to give prizes to.

Hopefully next time we’ll get better than 1/3 participation in the survey, I mean, come on guys :)

Anyhoo! The winners are selected, and each has an email in their inbox, so we’ll announce them here too!

Leif Wells and Andrew Blair!

We teased in the email about getting an iPad, and we’re leaving it up to each winner to select their prize (within our budget, come on we’re not made of money, LOL)

Thanks so much to everyone who submitted a survey, we truly truly appreciate it, and to those that didn’t, shame on you :)

See you guys in about 6 months!

Last year in Indianapolis, Doug McCune got pelted with bouncy balls during his preso, he was also half naked, but the two things aren’t related, LOL.

Almost a year later in San Jose, Doug got his revenge. Nate Beck was presenting on Wednesday (his birthday) and Doug arranged for a special visit during his session.

We actually have better video of that, but it’s being processed. This was captured by my iPhone.

There’s a lot that makes 360|Flex special, but I have to say, this type of thing, really is icing on the cake. That our speakers and attendees, are capable to having so much fun, WHILE learning a ton, is incredible.

Despite the interruption, Nate’s session got lots of love on twitter, as mind blowing. No one complained afterward, no one bitched on twitter, etc.

It was said shortly after “You won’t see that at MAX” I completely agree!

MAX is great, but this kind of camaraderie, doesn’t happen there, or at any other event that I’m aware of, certainly not at any I’ve been to.

Justin Mclean – Flex and hardware

Thanks for wanting to come along to my Flex and Hardware hands on course. On the day you learn about the Arduino hardware and software open source platform, create your own electronic circuits and control those circuits and the Arduino from Flex. Sounds exciting doesn’t it!

As a large number of people are expected to show up at the course I’ll be putting people in groups of two and the course will be limited to 40 people. Everyone will get a kit of electronic components and an Arduino to take home with them (if you promise it will only be used for good). Yes that right you get to keep a piece of hardware that’s faster than your old TRS-80 or Commodore 64.

You will to need to bring along:
- A laptop (preferably OSX or Windows)
- A standard USB A to B cable (rectangular one end and square the other end – commonly used for printers)

You don’t need to have any knowledge of electronics and there’s no soldering involved. You do need to have a programming background and it would be an advantage (but not essential) to know some Flex basics.

You will also need to set up the software that used in the course. Download the Arduino 0018 IDE from here:http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Learning/Linux

Install the Arduino IDE. To do so follow the guides here ignoring the steps about plugging in the Arduino:http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/Windows
http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/MacOSX
http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Learning/Linux

Have Flex builder* installed. If you don’t have FlexBuilder you can download a trial a trail version here:

I will have a few spare USB cables on the day but not enough for everyone so please don’t forget bring those cables along. If for any reason you can’t install the IDE or FlexBuilder  before the course I will have the software available on the day.

If you have any questions before the course please email me at justin@classsoftware.com

Garth Braithwaite – Flex 101

Flash Builder Beta 2 Installed(Available from Adobe Labs.)

Also the Latest Flex SDK

Joel Hooks – Hands-on Development with the Robotlegs AS3 Framework

Flash Builder Beta 2 Installed (Available from Adobe Labs.)

Also the Latest Flex SDK

Sid Maestre – Beginner Workshop with the Mate Framework

FlexBuilder 3 and a debugger version of the player installed.

Bookmark this link, and join us Tuesday at 12pm MST.

Elad will be answering your questions, about development, design, running a successful consulting business, and more.

This is the last speaker chat before 360|Flex! Don’t miss out!

Register now for what everyone calls the best Flex Conference around.

Thinking back to our very first 360|Flex, I remember the “Man Funk” road trippers.  They weren’t soul brothas with skills like James Brown.  No, they were the other kinda funk.  The one that fills a car after a few days with unshowered men. :) I won’t embarrass them by calling them out by name, alright maybe I will.  I’ll call out Rance Patterson because we’re now good friends.  He, his brother and another innocent soul braved a road trip from Boise, Idaho all the way down to San Jose.  I’m sure glad they did too, because Rance is a hoot and one of the many gems I’ve met during my tenure with 360|Flex.

Road trips are fun.  I’ve taken a few in my life and I love them all.  Even the ones where kids in the car endlessly loop, “Are we there yet?”  There’s nothing like the open road to open up your mind.  Steven Spielberg knows this to be true. He has stated that when he’s stuck on a problem or needs to work out a new idea, he goes for a drive. (Which I can verify is true, because he almost ran me over in the cross walk once but that’s a different story.)

Personally, I like to fill the iPod with great music. “Friends of Dean Martinez” makes for great driving music, since there’s no lyrics to distract your mind from thinking.  I used to make the trip from the Bay Area of Northern California to the Los Angeles Area of Southern California on a regular basis. My mind was always clear and my soul was at ease after each trip.

Therefore, I suggest a road trip regardless if you’re coming to 360|Flex.  BUT if you need a good reason to take a road trip, 360|Flex is the best reason around.  You’ll learn so much stuff to ponder on the drive home.  Possibilities that will fill your mind and make the miles/hours whiz on by.  Therefore, if you live in Portland, Boise, Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City or even Phoenix, it’s not too late to decide to come.  It’s going to be blast for sure.  The only question is, are you going to be there or reading the tweets from home.  You’re choice, but for a few hundred folks, the choice is obvious.  Register now and join us.  See you there and don’t forget to buy a car charger for your iPod!  :)

These chats have been an incredible source of information! Each week our speakers share what they know, with everyone on the chat, answering any question. It’s a great way to get some near one on one time with incredible talents in the community.

Bookmark this link and join us on Tuesday at 12pm MST.

Register now! Don’t miss out on the most cutting edge forward thinking topics, in the Flex/AIR community. Just check out what speaker Paul Robertson has to say about 360|Flex.

It’s not too late to register for 360|Flex!!! Register now!

1) Flex is fun: First and foremost, Flex is fun. If you ever tried to build a RIA in the Flash Authoring IDE, you know it was an exercise in futility. Sure, sure, it could be done, much like surgery can be done with a machete, but it was far too painful for the masses. Flex, especially with Flex/Flash Builder, makes the experience so much better.

2) Flex saves time: The framework does so much for you, right out of the proverbial box. One of my favorite things when teaching Flex to new people is to start a new project and add this single line of code:

<mx:Button label=”Main Button”/>

Then I run the application and show them how it’s a fully functional program.  I show them how there is already built in a hover state, down state and normal state.  All of this built-in to Flex, with no extra effort on your part.

3) Flex is easy: By this, I don’t mean you’ll be a Flex Superstar within a week.  Instead, what I mean is that Flex is a language that’s easy to come to from other scripting or programming languages.  For instance, that line above looks like HTML, because MXML is a markup language too.  ActionScript, the scripting language of Flex, is based on ECMAScript, which makes it instantly familiar to JavaScripters.  Flex is also Object-Oriented base, lending to itself design patterns that are familiar to others from the Java and other programming languages.

4) Flex doesn’t limit you: Most programming languages don’t limit you per se, but some make it tough to go beyond what the language and/or framework was meant to do. This is not the case with Flex.  I’ve seen some pretty amazing edge cases that push the envelope of what the Flex framework was meant to do.    That’s the great thing about Flex.  It was made to be used right out of the box, which is good for some apps.  However, the framework is also one big lesson on how to do anything your heart (or realistically, your Product Manager’s heart) can desire.

These are just a few reasons we became Flex developers back in the day.  It was also one of the reasons we created this conference.  We realized the potential that Flex had, and imagined the great things that would come of bringing everyone in the Flex community together.  The outcome of the shows have been greater than anything we could’ve imagined.  Frameworks, books, companies, businesses, friendships, etc. have all been born at 360|Flex. It’s a testament to the power of a unique community around an amazing product.

While 360|Flex does have some of the most advanced sessions on Flex, we haven’t forgotten about the newcomers. We always have a (free to paid attendees) Flex 101 session on Sunday before the show.  This is a full day of beginning training for those new to Flex or those needing a refresher before the conference.  You bring your own laptop and we have amazing instructors like Garth Braithwaite that teach you the basics of Flex.

If this all sounds great, then definitely come out and join us.  Register here for what’s sure to be a great time in San Jose.  Because if the framework is fun, you can imagine how much more fun the community is!

Jeff owns his own consulting company and has recently starts Flextras, building commercial quality custom components. The Flash platform and Flex community need more people selling awesome high quality stuff. Jeff, Simplified Logic, Grant, they need company.

Chat with Jeff about running his own business, competing with freebies and more!

Save this link!

If you’ve missed the last few speaker chats, feel free to check them out!

Michael Labriola

Eric Fickes and Jun Heider

Kevin Schmidt

If you haven’t registered for 360|Flex yet, time is running out! hurry up and register, don’t miss out on the best conference this spring! Register now!

Because of the rebranding of Flash and the associated technologies, the term Flex is now a bit watered down. However, we still wanted to use it to point out something that should be obvious to all, but may be lost in the debate. Flex work pays now, as in today, and will for the foreseeable future. A lot of enterprises have invested heavily in Flex. They’re not going to give up that investment anytime soon, particularly since the Flash Player on the desktop isn’t going anywhere.

To prove this, I did a quick little search on the monster.com website. This is not a debate about this particular job site’s ability or merit. Monster is big enough to represent the world at large, i.e. outside the Silicon Valley bubble where this Flash vs HTML5 debate is going down most vigorously. Therefore, it’s good enough for my non-scientific experiments.

First off, I did a search for HTML5 jobs nationwide. Let’s take a look at the results:

The results of my nationwide HTML5 job search

Next, I did a search for Flex jobs nationwide. Let’s take a look at this results there:

The results for the nationwide Flex job search

Now, some people will argue, what if you did a search for “HTML 5″ vs “HTML5″.  That brings the number up to 1700, but a quick glance shows that the majority are NOT HTML5 jobs. Rather, they’re HTML jobs with the number 5 somewhere in the job listing.  Also, “Flex hours” must also boost up the “Flex” search, right?  I found 1 “flex hour” posting in the first 100 jobs, so I don’t think the argument is valid

Now, what happens to the numbers if you search for “Flash” or “ActionScript”? I don’t know, because I didn’t .  Why not? Well, because Flex’s 1300 is close enough to the results of “HTML 5″ and blows way past the results for “HTML5″ to illustrate the main point:

Today, you can get hired by roughly 1300 companies to do Flex work or you can get hired by 18 companies to do HTML5 work.

If there’s one thing we’re very aware of at 360|Flex, it’s getting paid to do work.  We think getting paid is good.  We also started the conference to help you better your pay (if your working with Flex) or to help you find a new job (if you’re not working with Flex).  Therefore, we just wanted to point out that attending 360|Flex for the foreseeable future is a worthwhile investment.  Register now and participate in the greatest gathering of Flex developers anywhere.