AUG 29
2010
at: 9:46 PM | Filed under:
AIR,
MAX
I've finally been called up to the big leagues! Early last week I was asked to lead a BYOL (bring your own laptop) session at Adobe's MAX conference, October 23-27. This is a 90 minute hands-on session, and it's right up my alley, Learn to Build a Desktop Application using HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Adobe AIR. It's gonna be a challenge, developing my curriculum in 3 weeks, when everyone else has had 3 months, but I'm confident I can do it.
AUG 16
2010
This morning on Twitter, tweets were flurrying around on how to use AIR 2.0 from within ColdFusion Builder. I walked several people through the process but thought I'd blog about it so that more people take advantage of the knowledge. The steps that follow assume that you have ColdFusion Builder. They may be similar for Aptana or CFEclipse, but your mileage may vary.
AUG 5
2010
at: 3:08 PM | Filed under:
AIR
A friend asked me today about setting up IIS to deliver AIR files on request. I've had this information in all of my AIR presentations, but for some reason I've never blogged about it. So here's the info. Hope it helps someone.
JUL 11
2010
Are you a JavaScript, or jQuery developer and want to find out more about Adobe AIR? Are you interested in building desktop applications, but don't know how to get started? Then you should definitely check out the free presentation I'll be giving to the Boston ColdFusion User Group on July 21st at 6:30 ET.
JUN 2
2010
Do you live in, or around, Manhattan and are interested in learning more about desktop and mobile application development? Then you're in luck. I'll be speaking to the New York ColdFusion User Group (NYCFUG) on June 8th at 6:30 at the New York Medical Center. I'll walk you through the steps to write applications that can be deployed to the web, desktop, and mobile devices from a single codebase. Learn the basics of jQuery, AIR, and Phonegap. Use existing skills in jQuery, HTML/JS/CSS, AIR, and ColdFusion, to compile applications that can truly be used anywhere.
MAY 27
2010
at: 9:06 AM | Filed under:
AIR,
D2WC
Are you a designer wanting to learn some programming basics , but think "those programming conferences are over my head"? Are you a developer wanting to pick up some Photoshop skillz and don't know where to begin? Then have we got a show for you...wait; I mean have we got a conference for you! If either of those descriptions fit you then D2WC (or the Designer/Developer Workflow Conference) June 19-20 in Kansas City is THE conference for you. It's intended goal is to bridge the gap between designers and developers and help both sides improve their workflow by learning valuable concepts and tips from people on the OTHER side.
APR 23
2010
at: 10:07 PM | Filed under:
AIR,
cfObjective
Just taking a few minutes out from the greatness that is cf.Objective() 2010 to post my slides and code samples from my What's New in AIR 2.0 presentation. It went well, with good attendance, and feedback from the attendees. For those of you that attended, thank you for your time, I hope you learned something you didn't already know.
APR 3
2010
I've just confirmed that I'll be presenting in person to NYCFUG, the New York ColdFusion User Group on June 8th. That in and of itself is exciting as it has some top notch members. Even better than that is that I'll be presenting IN PERSON! That's right...I'm coming all the way from Nashville, TN to the big city to talk about one of my favorite topics in programming these days...Adobe AIR.
JAN 31
2010
As you may know, Adobe has public betas for ColdFusion Builder, and AIR 2.0. Both of these toolsets will really advance the development of Rich Internet Applications: for Flex, for Flash, or for standards compliant HTML and Javascript. One thing that it looks like neither will ship with, however, is support for jQuery 1.4, released on January 14, 2010. jQuery is arguably one of the the biggest players, if not THE biggest, in the burgeoning JavaScript framework renaissance of the last 3 years.
JAN 26
2010
A month or two ago I noticed a twitter friend of mine, and respected designer, Dee Sadler talking about a new conference she was planning. She's based in Kansas City, and having found out how active their development and design user groups are, I was intrigued. This Designer/Developer workflow conference sounded awesome. It wasn't just for developers, they wanted to target designers as well. Having started my career as a designer I decided to submit a topic. I just found out that I was accepted to speak! I'll be presenting a workflow topic covering how to build AIR applications with jQuery and ColdFusion. If you're in the midwest and you're looking to learn a wide range of topics, come check it out.
JAN 21
2010
On January 20th I gave a presentation to the Bay Area ColdFusion User Group (BACFUG) on Building AIR Applications with ColdFusion and jQuery. It went well, with about 30 or 40 people in attendance, both live and via Acrobat Connect. I just wanted to take a moment to post my code samples, as well as a link to watch the recorded presentation. Hope you enjoy, and don't forget to check out some of my other AIR posts.
JAN 6
2010
I just found out that I'll be speaking again this year at cf.Objective(), the premier Enterprise level ColdFusion developers conference, the week of April 22-24 . I'll be presenting on "What's New in Adobe AIR 2.0" and reviewing many of the new features Adobe will be putting out with AIR 2.0, code-named Athena. Functionality like support for the detection of mass storage devices, advanced networking capabilities like secure sockets, UDP support, and the ability to listen on sockets, support for native code integration, new APIs for access to raw microphone data, and global error handling. Its gonna be great!
JAN 5
2010
Way back in May, at cf.Objective(), I met a great guy named Sid. He shared with me that he was involved in the Bay Area ColdFusion User Group way out in the country of California. Sid told me that he was impressed with my jQuery presentation and asked if I would be interested in speaking to BACFUG. Fast forward 7 months and it seems that they've finally been forced to make good on their offer and let me speak. I'm sure it's because Sean Corfield can't be bothered to make the drive into the Adobe offices, but who am I to complain. (yes, I'm just kidding).
NOV 5
2009
When it comes to AIR application development, those of us using JavaScript are second class citizens. It's unfortunate, but true. Functionality easily available in Flash or Flex is either missing, or difficult to find (and use) in our apps. One such piece of functionality is the ability to capture screen shots, or bitmap data, for use in other parts of your app. In this post, I'll show you how you too can capture bitmap data using JavaScript, and a sprinkling of AS3.
NOV 2
2009
It's been a week since BFlex and I'm just now getting the chance to post all of my materials from my Drag and Drop Image Manager session. If you came to my session and didn't have a chance to grab the zip file containing all of the collateral, or if you weren't able to come to BFlex this year, then here's your chance. Download the zip file here.
NOV 1
2009
at: 9:12 PM | Filed under:
AIR,
Flex
If you're a JavaScript developer building apps against the AIR platform then you're a rare breed. Those of us who want to leverage our existing skillsets are definitely in the minority, and in some cases so is our code. While the AIR runtime includes lots of handy classes for building robust rich internet applications, it's also missing quite a few. The thing is that while the AIR runtime might not include those classes by default, we can still use them if they exist in our project. This quick tutorial is going to show you just how you'd go about compiling class files down into a SWF that can then be referenced in your project. I'll be using Flex Builder to do the compiling, but you can also do it via command line using the Flex SDK.
OCT 17
2009
at: 3:49 PM | Filed under:
AIR,
CFinNC,
jQuery
Thanks to everyone at CFinNC who came out to my sessions on Saturday morning. There were some technical snafus, but overall I was very pleased with the results. I hope you enjoyed yourselves, and maybe picked up a thing or two. Without further ado, here are the files from this morning's presentations.
OCT 12
2009
The next 2 weekends are going to be super busy here in Nashville. Or maybe I should say busy for me in general as I'll be going out of town for both of them.
SEP 8
2009
Tonight's presentation to the Nashville Flash Platform User Group was Exploring the AIR API: For Flex Developers, and it went quite well. In attendance were some of Nashville's finest, including Matthew Wallace, Scott Gordon, Boaz Reynolds, Dan Skaggs, and more. All total there were about 12 or 13 people there to see me completely wing my way through coverage of the AIR API for Flex developers. I was eloquent, and poetic, and went for 30 minutes longer than I had planned. But all in all, I think people enjoyed the session and, I hope, walked away with a desire to write desktop apps using the AIR framework.
SEP 4
2009
Registration for CFinNC is now open! CFinNC is a free web development conference held in Raleigh, North Carolina during the weekend of October 17th and 18th with an International line-up of speakers presenting on timely and relevant topics on web development. Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors and the creativity of the planning committee, registration for the event will be free and includes entry to the weekend event and to all presentations.
