Session Videos

Discounted to $2.50 First few minutes are cut off.

As an architectural framework, Mate helps you break down your application into specialized parts. As applications grow larger, they might benefit from the further division into specialized modules. In this session, Laura will show how to take advantage of special Mate features such as LocalEventMaps to help the development of modular Flex applications. She will also discuss the design patterns that work best with Mate to aid the development of simpler views that delegate some of its functionality, which is most needed when creating larger applications or working in teams.

With the rise of social and casual gaming, there is an influx of clever hackers trying to ruin it for the rest of us. From hacking high scores, modifying levels or straight up cheating… as long at your game connects to a server, there is always the potential that someone is going to try and hack your game. This session will walk through common tools and techniques that hackers are using today, and how you can combat them. The best defense is a good offense.

Follow up to Garth’s 360|Flex session: Your Flex App Looks Like Poo.

Richer interaction requires a better grasp of Interaction Design (IxD).

As Flash/Flex/Whatever developers/designers/whatevers you need to know your IxD crap; at least well enough to communicate with those who know what they’re doing.

In the session we’ll be looking at why being aware of IxD is important, how to get up to speed, and how to Flex 4 and Flash plays into it.

The latest 1.0 release of the Swiz Framework has introduced the ability to build and use custom metadata processors. In this session you’ll get an intro to the Swiz Framework and what metadata processors are and why you should use them. I’ll take you through the steps of building your own custom metadata processor and show you some great examples of metadata processors that are already available.

Manually testing Flash/Flex applications can be a royal pain. But with the latest development in Flex Pilot, Selenium/Sauce IDE, and Sauce OnDemand, you won’t have to rewrite as many hooks for automated testing, you don’t have to set-up and maintain QA infrastructure, and continuous integration with Hudson is a snap. Join this hands-on session and walk away with knowing how to write one functional test case that covers all your HTML, JavaScript, and Flash/Flex components and run your tests in parallel against multiple browsers and OSs in the cloud.

While Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control are everywhere you look in the AS3 world these days, Swiz was one of, if not the first framework to bring the proven pattern to ActionScript developers. Swiz helps developers write clean, powerful code, and to write it quickly. Swiz aims to remove as many of the tedious, boring tasks for the developer as it can while providing a robust, extensible base on which developers can write their own reusable power features. Come see how Swiz can make you better, faster, stronger, all while staying out of your way and imposing no boilerplate or icky framework inheritance. This presentation will be very code-sample heavy, slide lovers stay away!

The session will start by a quick presentation of the GraniteDS open source project. GraniteDS is now one of the most widely used alternatives to Adobe BlazeDS and provides features that make it comparable to the Adobe LiveCycle Data Services product. The talk will explain the radically different approach of JEE5/6 integration between

GraniteDS and LCDS and emphasize the benefits that this approach can bring to enterprise RIA development. Three new features of GraniteDS 2.2 will also be demonstrated with code examples and a live demo of a simple online bet example application : – Client-side Flex data validation based on the Bean Validation API – Flex implementation of BigDecimal / BigInteger – Real-time data synchronization of JPA entities between Flex clients

With the release of Flex 4 comes Adobe’s Text Layout Framework. The TLF aims to give Flex developers the ability to create rich and dynamic text in their applications as well as provide powerful text editing functionality. It provides features such as typographic controls (such as kerning, ligatures, and typographic case), complex layouts with linked containers and multiple columns, selection and editing capabilities (including cut/copy/ paste, keyboard and mouse gestures, as well as undo/redo management), among others. The purpose of this session is to give the interested Flex developer an overview of the its structure, steps to utilizing it within a Flex application, and a look at how to extend its text and editing elements.

Data binding is one of the most used processes when building Flex applications, but at the same time, it’s a costly process and can delay initialization of an application. It’s a good idea to pay attention and ensure it’s used correctly and when needed. In this presentation I will cover a list of ten common pitfalls and misuses that developers do when building a Flex application while using the binding process. This presentation is for Flex/AIR developers Attendees will gain a better understanding of how to use the binding process and avoid common misuse mistakes.

Let the HTML5 fanboys have the browser, I want the Flash Platform. Come out and see some unique usages of the Flash Platform ( AIR ) that you most likely won’t see in HTML5 any time soon.

How to combine SWFAddress’ ease of use for creating deeplinking and SEO friendly Flex apps combined with Google Analytics Actionscript library to track everything your visitors do on your sites.

Outline Benefits of deeplinking your Flex apps Benefits of analytics Getting your app ready for SWFAddress Javascript / HTML template Implementing InBox / OutBox classes to manage SWFAddress communications Creating a working example of SWFAddress in action Integrating Google Analytics with your Flex app via the OutBox created earlier for SWFAddress Examples of events you can track with GA User clicks – just like you would get on a HTML website User motion – watch what the user is doing even if they don’t click Creating custom reports with GA data – heat maps.

3 framework specialists (To Be Announced August 2) will present code evidence on why ‘their’ framework is the best to use for Flex development. You’ll see each specialist present steps to implement the framework and the virtues of using it, followed by a live and open debate. If you’ve ever considered using frameworks, wanted to see each one in action, and dreamed of seeing them compared side by side by the experts that use them, don’t miss this session!

This session is a deeper look into the Open Source Media Framework. We will take another step further down the rabbit hole and get a better understanding through examples and discussion on what OSMF really offers. A focus will be the advanced layout controls and how they play into the big picture of building powerful media experiences with complex compositions of media elements for things like advertising, purchasing, and interactivity. We will then take a look at how this all relates to the extensible plugin capabilities of the OSMF and what the benefits and limitations are of the plugins from a developers and integrators point of view.

A basic understanding of OSMF will be useful but not required, and a intermediate level of AS3 will be required to get the most out of this session.

A new age of highly scalable and cost-effective multi-user application development is dawning, that will significantly reduce your costs, and help enable your business success. Thanks to new P2P features available within the Flash Platform developers can leverage peer-assisted networking to build applications that have little impact on centralized servers. During this session you will get a deep dive into the features that make Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2 P2P networking tick: Application-level multicast, IP Multicast, Groups, Directed Routing, and Object Replication. You’ll get a chance to see real-world demonstrations of the various use-cases that can be solved with Adobe peer-assisted networking: Server-less multimedia broadcast, file-transfer, and multi-client data synchronization. Combining the power of Flash Platform P2P and the ubiquity of Flash

across screen, both desktop and mobile, you will start to realize the potential for innovation and ROI with Flash Platform P2P..

Learn how to reduce server and bandwidth overhead by leveraging the new P2P features available in Adobe Flash platform with Flash Player 10.1, AIR 2, and Adobe server technologies. Add new P2P classes and the new RTMFP protocol to your tool belt to start building highly scalable multi-user applications. During this session you will become familiar with the many use-cases that can be realized when using peer-assisted networking in desktop browser Flash Player, Adobe AIR, and mobile devices supporting Flash Player 10.1 . Experience direct player-to-player multi-user chat. Witness server-less file sharing between peers in a P2P group. Learn how to leverage peer-assisted networking to create real-time directed learning applications. Discover how to start utilizing connected clients to decrease the need for large server infrastructures.

Let’s make your next AIR app fun and different. We’ll take a look at several AIR apps to

see what makes them standout. Then we’ll dive into how you, too, can create an application that your users will enjoy.

(Priced at $2.50, the video doesn’t capture the screen well.)

iCal is the standard for sharing data in Calendar Applications and many applications such as Google Calendar and meetup.com provide iCal feeds of their data. This presentation will take a look atthe iCal format and provide some options for consuming and using iCal feeds from within Flex

Jeffry Houser-Flex Components for the Real World

Adobe has spent a lot of time making the Flex Framework components as reusable as possible. But, for normal development you do not need to create components that are as flexible or bullet proof as the ones in the Flex Framework. In this presentation we will learn how to build Flex Components for real world applications. And if you want to bullet proof your stuff, there will be an introduction for that as well.

Have you ever wanted to add text chat to your application? Video chat? Build a multi- player game? Well then here comes the request for a server, software license costs, time to learn the new software, configure it, and argue with IT about where it lives. Yikes! Well, no more, I say!

In this session learn to leverage collaboration in the cloud with LiveCycle Collaboration Services (LCCS). Don’t let the name scare you, LCCS lets you add real-time text, audio and video chat in minutes, costs nothing to get started, and scales for pennies. Useful for everything from enterprise call centers, to hands-on language training, to multi-player gaming, and much more. Join this session to get a foundation of how to make all this happen without the headache of traditional back-office systems.

At the last 360|Flex, two reviewers felt my session wasn’t technical or deep enough. I feel bad about that. This session is for those two people (and anyone else who wants to learn

everything I can teach about the deep inner workings of Flex 4 components in 90 minutes). Starting with a Button and an Application, we will try to examine every method and property used by the Button as it takes its journey to becoming sized, positioned and visible on the display list. We will need to discuss groups, skinnable components and containers, layout objects and everything else that gets in our way. Come early. Bring caffeine. I will be moving fast

During the Christmas break in 2007, while considering the year ahead, making short term life plans and new year resolutions, one of my resolutions was to start an Open Source project. I’d already contributed to three open-source projects and I figured I knew enough to manage one of my own. So I began developing the Flint particle system.

Six weeks later I released an early beta of Flint. And now, more than two years later, after many releases, I still develop and manage the project. There have been ups and downs. Times of joy and times of pain. And worst of all, times of boredom. But I still look after my project. Because an open source project is for life, not just for Christmas.

In this session I’ll describe the emotional rollercoaster of running an open-source project. I’ll tell you the real reason why I started the project, why the project almost failed, and why it may still fail. I’ll talk about the people I met through the project – the good and the bad. And I’ll talk about what I learnt from the project and how it changed my life.

If you want to know what it’s really like to run an open source project come and join me.

Richard Lord-Re-architecting the designer-developer workflow

Most application development follows a pattern where the designers design it then the developers build it. Any change in the design requires more work from the developers, who have to implement each change request. It doesn’t have to be this way. By modifying the application architecture, we can enable the developer to do their work before the designer, leaving the designer free to alter the design as frequently as they wish without recourse to developer time. This frees designers to respond to client requests in a timely manner and frees developers to work on a more strategic level, adding functionality to the tools the designers use without being bogged down in day-to-day client projects. In this session Iʼll describe this new architecture, how and why I developed it, the benefits and pitfalls of its use, and how to implement it using any of the current dependency injection frameworks.

Where a freelancer will admit it or not, they are running their own little business complete with employees, vendors, clients, marketing, and sundry other obligations. The upside is unlimited. The freedom is dangerous. The kicker is that you don’t have 1 boss, you have a boss in every client. Here are practical principles learned in the real world of freelancing that will help you excel to the next level.

What a freelancer provides It’s NOT about the code How to estimate How to communicate an estimate How to integrate and work with a team How to invoice and get paid

How to manage time How to talk to clients and client’s clients

Nobody likes to say no to work, but at some point you have to find a way to deliver on your abundance of commitments that doesn’t involve deploying at 4am after 56 hrs of no sleep. What are your options? This session will discuss some options and how to best ascertain the route you should take.

Topics to touch on Identifying profitability in your market and skill set Qualifying opportunities Subcontracting – interviewing and contracting Working with a virtual team

a Farmer

Inspiration can come from anywhere. For one developer, it came in the form of a farmer from Swoope, Virginia. In this session, we’ll take a look at how lessons from a farmer who’s much more than he appears to be are applicable to what we do as technologists. How does a raw milk startup relate to building a flex application? How does corn production relate to user experience design? If you’re interested in, or intrigued by questions like these, come to this session. It will provide you with insight into what we do and how to look at sources outside of the norm for inspiration.

IoC is all the rage of late and all of the latest generation of Flex frameworks are IoC implementations including Robot Legs, Swiz and Parsley. A thorough understanding of the underlying concepts will help you to not only choose the best framework for your use, but also to utilize those frameworks most effectively. This session will cover the important concepts including dependency, coupling, injection and the benefits that are had by using an IoC framework. Some coverage of the current popular frameworks will be given to see how each implements IoC. We will examine some of the drawbacks/issues of using IoC with Flex and also discuss some practical approaches to using IoC on your projects.

There has been a lot of buzz recently about CouchDB, but what is it? How do you use it? And can it replace or complement your existing RDBMS?

This session will introduce you to the NoSQL movement, compare the different types of non-relational data stores, and discuss when and why you should consider it. We will discuss CouchDB from the installation process to getting the data and displaying it in your Flex application. In the end I will demo a working application using a CouchDB library for Flex.

Tools have become a standard in the development process of AAA game titles, but what about flash games? Jeremy will go over how he went about building a toolset to build flash games using the pushbutton engine. Topics will range from serialization techniques to creating a user experience fit to the fast-paced development of modular, data-driven games.

LiveCycle Data Services offers powerful enterprise tools to develop Rich Internet Applications. LCDS allows developers to connect to remote objects, handle messaging and data management all in a powerful enterprise manner. Come find out how you can leverage LiveCycle Data Services to build powerful RIA’s for the enterprise.

Come see how cutting edge features of the Flash Platform can help you create geo- enabled applications across multiple screens. With next generation versions of AIR and Flash Player for mobile devices (and desktops) we now have a wealth of APIs that can help in making location-based applications. You’ll get a detailed picture of how the geolocation APIs work and what kind of support different devices have. I’ll also talk about some of the mapping projects that you can use with Flash. Whether you want detailed GIS data with ESRI’s mapping component, advanced functionality with Google Maps, or to build your own map with Modest Maps, you’ll get a picture of them all. Finally, I’ll talk about some of the various Flash-related geo projects out there for managing and dealing with geolocation data. You’ll walk away being able to start integrating location and maps into any Flash project.

What do you really learn from more than 10,000 hours of programming in front of a cold, lifeless computer monitor? You learn that eight bits make a byte, you learn what polymorphism means, and with enough experience you learn the life-lessons of software development: The Art of Computer Science. In this session Ben will reveal the tips, guidelines, philosophies, viewpoints and rules for making great software – from how to feel your way through the development process to how a few golden rules can make or break your design. Be ready to take an hour away from the details and ask, “What am I learning from all this work?”

Flex has some amazing built-in visual effects, which are probably one of the primary reasons to use the framework over other RIA platforms. And, as it turns out, effects are relatively easy to create. This session will dive into the drawing API and the base effect classes, teaching you how to build yours from the ground up. Need to make a group turn

into static? Or shift the RGB of an image? All controlled by bindable properties on an effect class? Then come and learn!

In the spark skinning model, there are several different approaches to designing components, and determining what should be part of the skin, or the layout, or the component itself. In this session, we’ll explore some early ideals about best practices for Flex 4 components.

You all know by now that you should be unit testing your code, but do you know how? It is unfortunately really easy in flex to architect code which is very difficult to test. In this

session, we will explore how to build components and applications in flex which are inherently testable, and see how we test them.

This session will detail some of the new features of Flash Player 10′s newest low-level API, the Flash Text Engine. I’ll explain just how low-level the FTE really is, cover the FTE’s API, how to render rich text, and how to manage user interaction. I’ll introduce TinyTLF, a tiny text layout framework for Flash and Flex applications. I’ll talk about the motivations for developing TinyTLF, as well as go into a discussion of some of the more advanced techniques for rendering text including decorations, layout, selection, and CSS. I promise I will not bash Adobe’s TLF.

This session will cover beginner to advanced topics for data visualization in Flex. The key is not simply to cover Flex charting, but how to merge different visualization techniques to enable the user to easily browse and observe trends in the data.

Learn how you can take a simple Flex software side project and make it a product. While consistent, low-risk money is in service development, the big money and fulfilled desire to create the software you want is in product development. Create software that matches your goals in life, not for someone else. Create the software you want to create. Learn about all the aspects of software that don’t have to do with coding.

Jesse will take you through the steps of picking an idea, one you probably have done a lot of work on already, and getting it to market. He’ll go over the reasons why, what you can

gain from doing so, and how even failing at doing so is full of wins.

Hosted by Chuck Freedman, and judged by a panel of experts, the two Jesse’s verbally duke it out over which is best, straight actionscript, or MXML

Have you ever wanted more from a component set, or wished you could do more with your User-Interface design? As a full-featured component framework Reflex is engineered to make your UI smaller, faster and easier to customize in order to meet the demands of next generation apps and devices. Come meet Reflex and learn about the unique architecture of this ActionScript 3 framework and how it enhances Flash with a more powerful UI toolset. Realize how easy and familiar it is to build your web or mobile UI with Reflex in Flash Builder’s MXML, then making it your own by fully customizing the experience.

Free! A Discount is applied when you check out.

Panelists: Ben Stucki, Shashank Tiwari, Kevin Hoyt, Jesse Warden, Jeffry Houser, Jeff Tapper

This powerhouse panel, talks about the Flash Platform, it’s future, it’s relevance, and more.

Panelists: Paul Giurata, Chet Haase, Bill Scott, Ehud Waizer

This panel discussion will investigate the question of ‘what are good/bad principles and practices in RIA UI design for business, enterprise or other apps?’. All the books you peruse at the local (Borders) library on interface design largely work within the constraints of a non-RIA design/development environment for websites or applications. Now that designers and developers have significant animation capabilities in Flex for applications when is it appropriate to have glowing, moving, and morphing UI components like buttons, forms and video? Currently the screen ‘pages’ will essentially ‘snap’ from one layout/page to another. This is an un-natural and abrupt change that you can get used to, but is mentally disruptive, especially if you have to re-assimilate the page to find information or next steps. Apple has raised the bar for the industry in the design of its products and particularly the iPhone which employs a natural flow and movement in the UI – transitions are animated and employ more natural-physics based movements, fades and scale (things growing and shrinking). Come out and participate in this discussion on what may be the ‘new’ design rules, principles and guidelines for RIA user experience development.

The multitude of technical terms, APIs and components can get somewhat confusing. We’ll layout all available components (By march there will be many new), how they used and when is best to use each one. We’ll go over low level things like NetStream for all types of connections (RTMP,Progressive,Adaptive…), Smart UI designs for Video experiences, Online video editing?… Learn about the considerations involved with online video and what solutions are available around.

Part I. Even in a down economy, finding top developers is quite a task. For the most part, good people have solid jobs they love. Should you cross train? Pay hefty fees for head hunters? Monster.com? In this session we will go over a couple of options, and what we’ve found to be successful for procuring those “golden nugget” employees. Part II: Once you have them, what makes them stay? How much does company culture make a difference? How about work load? What type of environment is cost effective for you as the employer and awesome for everybody around? We’ll also cover tips on keeping developers happy, and around for years.

The actionscript community is amazing at building examples and sharing code. Git is a distributed version control system that makes it easier than ever to track, share and collaborate on your projects. Projects like FlexUnit, Swiz, Robotlegs and OpenPyro have already made the switch. In this session we will look at how git works, what makes it different from other SCMs and what you need to get started. This session is targeted at developers new to git. Most of the examples contrast git against svn so being familiar with that will help but is not essential.

I don’t know about you… but as an enterprise software developer, sometimes I need to take a break from the corporate world and want to develop something fun. In this session Nate Beck will take you through the basics of game development using the Flex SDK you know and love. Nate will walk you through setting up your development environment, the basics of game development, using the open source PushButton game engine and building a functioning game.

With the new skinning tools in Flex 4 you no longer have an excuse for your apps looking like cookie cutter crap. We’ll cover skinning basic components (like button, radio, checkbox) and mutilating advanced components (DataGroup, Lists, ButtonBar, SparkComponent) beyond the point of recognition. As an extra exercise we cover how to quickly create a custom loading screen.

Clients will ask, and you will be forced to choose your analytics weapon. Learn about Adomniture’s and Google’s analytics tools and how you can use them to drive business. The session will be divided up into three sections. Firstly, the high level details about the qualities and business benefits of each. Second, a simple walk through of how to use the tools. And lastly, how to implement and deploy those tools in your applications.

This session will walk through a simple flex application that uses advanced data grids to provide side-by-side comparison functionality. It will touch upon customizing advanced data grid control using custom item renderers, XML for model definition and e4x for model manipulation

One of the hallmarks of RIA is a smooth interaction between the user and the application. As applications become more data and computation intensive, developers can face several challenges in try to increase the power of applications while maintaining the integrity of the user experience. This session discusses why sometimes Flash platform applications become unresponsive or crash in the face of high processing demands and what can developers do to combat this, how they can maintain responsiveness in their interfaces. In particular this session focuses on greenthreading and how a developer can use greenthreading to give Flex applications a level of concurrency so that applications can accomplish intensive tasks while maintaining a high degree of interactivity with the user. Examples are given to show how this “Divide and Conquer” method can achieve this cleanly and easily.

Building for constrained hardware devices, like the iPhone/iPod Touch, changes how you approach development of your applications. Come see code and examples from a iPhone game to learn the process for optimizing for iDevice platform. Learn techniques like game timers, object pooling, new graphic caching (GPU hooks), sound, and graphic embedding.

Unit testing and Test Driven Development (TDD) is one of the hottest architectural subjects in the latest years. Explore how to make development and scalability easier and less prone to errors. You will go through the development cycle of developing using TDD and get a complete overview on how to change your development cycle and move to TDD. You will see how to create Test Suites and Test Cases and tie them with your development cycle, integrate with framework as well as test visual component.

Everyone have heard of RSLs and “Merged into code” link options. But do you really see the connection between the library linkage and your enterprise application performance? Do you know what and when goes over the wire to your users? Do you really understand the difference between the RSL and External linking of Flex libraries? Do you know when to use libraries and when to use modules? Do you know the difference between modules and sub-applications? Do you know how to arrange for a smarter RSL downloads? If you answered “Yes” to most of these questions, don’t waste your time attending this presentation cause it’ll be so boooring for you.

Choosing technology to build your RIA is not just about choosing your client side technology. To add common features like user authentication and profiles you’re required to choose an appropriate backend or server side technology as well. Continuing on the topic of Flex vs. Silverlight, this talk will take a look at the ins and outs of connecting your client app to Coldfusion and ASP.NET.

RunPee 2.0 is currently under construction and due for public release in mid November. It is being built with as much of the Spark Framework as possible. My intention to release the source code for the app and package up everything that someone would need to run the app on their local machine. I’ll include an export of the database – with sample data, PHP files, etc. I don’t plan on offering the source code until Flash Builder is out of beta – which I’m guessing will happen at 360Flex? :)

Some of the features under the hood of RunPee 2.0

• Multi language support for both for the UI and the data. I would cover how to create a database that can hold data in all the supported languages and then display that in the application.
• Using AMFPHP for database integration Separation of data from UI to facilitate ease of building multiple interfaces for web and mobile web.
• Using Google Analytics API to track users Running on Amazon EC2 cloud servers Spark, CSS, goodness Integration with a WordPress blog – some of the info displayed in the Flex app comes from data stored in the WordPress database – such as movie reviews and comments.
• Deeplinking using SWFobject/SWFaddress.
• Flash SEO Designed/Architected to facilitate redesigns that advertise a specific movie. ( similar to sites like IMDb.com that change their theme to advertise for movies like ZombieLand, etc. )

Anthony moderates a panel about how developers can benefit from learning to navigate the often murky waters of execu-speak.

No other RIA platform today offers the control over text display that the Flash Player now provides with the introduction of Flash Text Engine (FTE) in Flash player 10. With support for multi-column text layouts, inline images, character rotation, and much more, the new text engine allows for many features that were previously difficult, if not impossible to implement using dynamic text. The FTE is fairly low level, but luckily Flex 4 contains a high level framework for working with it, called the Text Layout Framework (TLF). However, even with the higher level components and MXML integration that Flex 4 provides, it can still be daunting to know exactly how these new components can be used in your applications, or when it may be necessary to drop down to the FTE directly. This session aims to get you acquainted with the Text Layout Framework and, to a lesser extent, the Flash Text Engine through practical examples of how they can be leveraged to add dynamic and feature rich text to your Flex applications.

At the end of this demo heavy session you will understand the underlying concepts of the TLF and FTE and will have seen how they can be used to:

• Create dynamic text layouts that change based on user preference or component dimensions.
• Chain editable text areas together so that they flow around images and other components.
• Dynamically insert emoticons and other graphical elements into text.
• Get artistic with your text using ligature, kerning, tracking and baseline settings (as well as what all those terms mean)

Take control of service calls by creating your own queue and dynamically shifting priority based off user interaciton. Load what users are looking at first and and delay the rest for later. Show progress indicators in multiple locations for a single request. Once loaded, cache images in such a way that they can be displayed immediately anywhere in the app.

[DESC A: Serious] This session will be a deep dive into the Open Source Media Framework from Adobe and leaders of the community. We will take a hands on look at what the framework has to offer, why it is vital that this is finally being release, and most importantly what technical aspects are advantageous and how to implement a custom OSMF solution in Flex. We will spend some time focusing on the extensive plug-in architecture, dynamic streaming multi-bitrate capabilities, and more.

[DESC B: Fun] So you like Flex? You like Video? Ever try and combine the 2 for advanced solutions? If so I already feel sorry for you. The pain of so many years of bad players, lack of functionality, customizability, and no standardization is coming to an end! If you are feeling cold and alone in the video realm, especially when trying to use Flex then this session is for you. No longer will Flex developers be forced into being second class citizens when it comes to video player development! Alas a hero ahs arrived with a silly acronym, which of course means it has to be cool – OSMF!!! OSMF is the Open Source Media Framework that Adobe is releasing. It has all the mojo needed for top tier video players in Flex and Flash and this session will give you the deets and the how to for making badass video players using Flex and the OSMF. Come find out about the robust plugin architecture of this modular framework, dynamic streaming capabilities, advanced advertising integration capabilities, CDN integration, and basic UI management. OSMF FTW!

Adobe Stratus and Flash Player 10 P2P: Enterprise Multi-user Applications Without the Need for Large Server Infrastructure

This session will involve a technical deep-dive into the world of automated builds and continuous integration using popular open source tools, including, Maven, Artifactory, and Hudson.

We will discuss the overall concept of continuous integration, detailing the overwhelming benefits (and challenges) of employing a continuous integration strategy into your RIA development paradigm, which transcends the build process into a science, rather than a black art.

We will also cover concrete approaches to implementing continuous integration. Some of these concepts include: 3rd party library integration, generating documentation, setting up project dependencies, integrated unit testing, and elegant project deployment – all autonomously.

Lastly, and in order to lend credence to the discussed approaches, we will be reverse-engineering an existing continuously integrated project (or two) as a case study, and examine how I have used the approach to meet the needs of various clientele.

What attendees will walk away with:

• An understanding of automated builds and continuous integration
• Best practices for continuously integrating RIAs
• Knowledge of how to set up continuously integrated builds for new or existing projects in minutes
• How to set up and use Artifactory (a Maven artifacts server)
• An understanding of how continuous integration supports popular development approaches, such as Test-Driven Development.

Are you a Flex developer with an inkling to see what the dark side is like? During this session the porting of an application from Flex to Silverlight will be discussed through the eyes of a seasoned Flex developer with no prior Silverlight experience. The main focus of this session will be to show you how a Flex developer got started with Silverlight and things and thoughts encountered during the process. In addition, the newest workflows by both Microsoft and Adobe will be demonstrated.

This session will take a look at the component architecture differences between the Flex 3 component architecture (Halo) and the Flex 4 component architecture (Spark). It’ll go into details on how each one works and compare and contrast the two.

A house that intelligently changes lighting and temperature based on personal preferences as you move from room to room. A refrigerator that knows what is in it, and can make a menu suggestion for you from an online recipe database. This is the internet of things – but do you the web developer know how to leverage it? In this session get a gentle introduction to using the plug-and-play Phidgets sensors and controls. Learn to leverage RFID and solenoid valves from Flex to control access to a keg of beer, and visualize real-time social trends.

Priced at $2.99 for less than awesome audio quality.

Flex 4 Introduces a world of new component concepts. From new interfaces to new base classes. How and when you write a custom component in the Flex 4 world has changed drastically. So, do we forget everything we have learned so far? Should all this knowledge be erased?

This is a very deep dive on the new interface, new methods and new concepts in play. We will explain the new practices and show how they relate to what we did in Flex 3. You will understand the concepts involved in writing new components with the goal of making the Flex 4 switch less maddening and perhaps even enjoyable.

Most application development follows a pattern where the designers design it then the developers build it. Any change in the design requires more work from the developers, who have to implement each change request.

At BrightTALK, we have devised a development style and application architecture that places the designer at the end of the line. We make it possible for developers to complete their development work before the design is even complete, enabling the designers to complete the final application without any further involvement from the developers.

This frees our developers to work on a strategic level, adding functionality to BrightTALK’s service platforms without being bogged down in day-to-day client projects. It also enables our designers to respond to clients in a timely manner.

The key to this was rejecting the model-view-controller architecture and instead embracing custom Flex components, spiced up with some judicious dependency injection. The result is an architecture based on loosely coupled smart components.

Join Richard to discover the details of the BrightTALK approach, the pitfalls we encountered along the way and the benefits we have gained.

Many Flash developers are eager to try their hand at iPhone development but may find the move to Xcode, Objective-C, and OpenGL a little overwhelming. We’ll approach iPhone development from the perspective of a Flash developer, and discuss what you need to get started. To put it all together we’ll demonstrate how to use our upcoming open-source PixelSquared engine, which wraps native iPhone functionality and OpenGL code into Actionscript-like classes any Flash developer would be familiar with.

What you’ll probably get out of this session:

• Learn about what it takes to migrate from Flash to iPhone development
• Getting started working with the wicked-awesome PixelSquared engine
• How to get your beloved MovieClips and animations out of Flash and into the iPhone
• How to extend the framework with custom OpenGL ES code

Explore in this session the benefit of an agile approaches during the development of a a Flex application. The session will be very practice and will show to you how to start gracefully with agile without breaking too much the confidence that developers have with the waterfall approach. During the session we’ll explore together also some coding approach to keep your code and development workflow very agile

(Only $2.00 Not very close up on the screen)

I bet you never thought a rules engine could be used to enrich a client side experience. Rules engines have typically been utilized for data-centric processing and routing of pathways on a server. However they can also be leveraged on the client to to enhance user experience by introspecting your data model dynamically and define to visual state of your app. Building a rules engine is no easy task but this session will show you how to do so in Flex leveraging the power of AS3 and the Hamcrest API.

Technical topics/questions covered will include:

• Why would I want a rules engine in my flex application?
• The architecture of a rules engine at a high level.
• Short circuit boolean evaluation in AS3 using RegExp Leveraging Hamcrest matchers to evaluate rules and expressions
• Dynamic object binding in AS3 using ObjectProxy

Learn how Flex 4′s component lifecycle has changed from it’s predecessors. Gain knowledge into how to leverage each of the lifecycles’ main methods for specific situations that allow for your custom components to be more scalable, maintainable, and most importantly performance efficient.

User Experience (UX). We’ve all heard it, but do you know what it really means and why, as a developer, you should pay attention to it when creating your killer RIAs? This session will go into the how and why of UX, from a developer’s perspective, and help you understand why UX is more than just pretty designs. We’ll go over some key concepts that will help you understand why you need to take another look at usability as you develop your applications. We don’t guarantee you’ll be a UX expert by the end of the session, but you will have, at least, a greater appreciation for the process and why it matters.

Use Flash Platform tools and technologies to build applications for the iPhone. Through a combination of walkthroughs and tearing apart real applications, this session will include publishing workflows, how existing APIs apply on the iPhone, new APIs that are available specifically for iPhone, and optimizing applications for the UI and performance constraints of a mobile platform.

This session would encompass the often mis-understood methods for automating flex build and deployment cycles. Several options and examples would be concisely presented including java ant, php phing and others, as well as how to wield the power of the command line flex sdk. I would present a brief tutorial on how to get started with these methods. Also, a sophisticated GUI based build server concept would be discussed. I would also weigh the pros and cons of nightly builds and scheduled deployments and how these impact various architecture phases of an application. Also arguments discouraging the use of SVN/CVS for deployments would be presented.

ColdFusion 9 introduced several powerful new tools for Flex developers. One of the new features exposes ColdFusion functionality through ColdFusion proxy ActionScript classes. You are now able to call ColdFusion services such as charting, image manipulation, smtp, pop and pdf functions directly from ActionScript without writing any ColdFusion code. Come find out how to use this powerful new ColdFusion service without ever writing a single line of ColdFusion code!

Take advantage of the real-time web and collaboration with LiveCycle Collaboration Services. In this session you’ll get a tour of LCCS and see how you can add real-time video chat and custom collaboration components just by dragging and dropping. You’ll also see how you can integrate your PHP backend to manage your collaborative application from the server. You’ll see regular PHP examples as well as how you might incorporate collaboration into Drupal.

Deepa talks about all the awesome features of Flex 4 that AREN’T the Spark compoment model. There’s a lot to Flex 4 beyond Spark.

Ben Stucki talks about what goes into the building of great RIAs

Stop the pain, start the progress. In both flex 3 and flex 4 there are a number of clear pain points which all advanced flex developers find, and need to learn to navigate around. In this session, we identify the pain points, and discuss various strategies for alleviating the pain.

The session will demo and explain the next generation of Flex and AIR applications built for a multi-touch device. Will demonstrate gesture based interactivity and fluid seamless interfaces.

More and more hardware devices today are supporting GPS technology. In many cases, the raw data is difficult to get at. Andrew Westberg created the Swift GPS hardware device as a fun and easy way for developers, hobbyists, athletes, and adventurers to capture, access, and manipulate GPS data. Runningmap.com was designed from the ground up by Randy Troppmann to take advantage of GPS data and help runner’s visualize and track their workouts. Together in this session, we’ll explore some of the guts and struggles behind the creation of Swift GPS and runningmap.com as well as provide additional examples and inspiration for creating your own GPS-capable Flex applications.

During this session we’ll dive headfirst into the Axiis data visualization framework. We’ll start with the basics — the Axiis render cycle and using the built in visualizations — and get into more advanced topics — creating custom visualizations, adding interactivity, and addressing performance bottlenecks. No prior knowledge of Axiis is required.

Lower Price: $2.00 No screen recording, so mainly good for the audio!

Learn how to integrate the RobotLegs MVCS framework on top of the Gaia Flash Framework. While Gaia is known for creating high profile sites like Mercedes Benz: AMG, Star Trek Movie, and Disney’s the Jungle Book, it does not provide a business and application layer. When creating Enterprise sites ones like HBO, FordVehicles, and Hyundia a framework is needed for integrating all the dynamic data from the middle-tier, as well as having a layer to handling the domain logic.

Jesse will build an example site using Gaia, show you how to integrate RobotLegs on top of Gaia, and explain the workflow with a little continuous integration advice.

Flex was a big step toward building expressive web applications, recently enhanced by the design features of Flex 4. Now, the next step in the RIA evolution is a community project called Reflex. As a full-featured component framework Reflex is engineered to be smaller, faster and more flexible than any other solution in existence, to meet the demands of next generation applications and devices. Come learn about the unique architecture of this ActionScript 3 framework and how it extends and enhances the Flash Player to provide an ubiquitous UI toolset. Be among the first to see what Reflex can do and hear about the details of the project, its goals and its future.

It’s hard to explain this video. Doug Actually passed on speaking at other events to prep for this talk.

Doug talks about data visualization, his work in that area, some history of data viz, pointing out that someone invented the bar chart.

Doug’s talk was keynote level stuff, meant to energize, inspire, and educate.

Sam talks about building/modeling life in software. He presents his latest open project, Las Viditas, using ActionScript to build a life simulation.

Ryan kinda kicked off RIAdventure 2009, with a talk on the overall Adobe Stack, Flash Catalyst, and more.

After Sam Rivello took his header off the stairs (… Ask me next time we’re in the same room) Nate jumped in to do a preso on the Push Button Engine, and his work with Flash platform gaming.

Faisal goes over what’s involved in building an Android app.