charlie griefer

just the perfect amount of cowbell

santa (as channeled by mike potter) arrived a bit early at the griefer household this year.

i just got home from work to find a box from amazon waiting on the doorstep.  it was the flex 2 book by chafic kazoun and joey lott, with the following note:

Merry Christmas from the Adobe Flex Team!  Thanks for your interest in Flex.
Add your Flex app to the Flex Showcase at http://flex.org/

From: Mike Potter, Flex Team

i'd heard of this happening to others, but never thought it would happen to me (which yes, i do recognize sounds like the opening to a penthouse letter).

i'll actually be donating this to the bay area cfug for be used as a raffle giveway during the next meeting.  turns out i already had this particular book.  not sure if i forgot to move it to the 'purchased' items on my wishlist or not (it's there now... but that's either because i'd already done it, or because mike bought me the book... likely the latter).  i figure by donating it to the CFUG, it'll still be going to a good cause.  if you're going to be in the bay area for the next meeting (jan 21, 6:30 pm) stop by.  the topic is flex and AIR (ted patrick will be presenting), so it's somewhat appropriate, i guess :)

in any event, the thought and effort is very much appreciated.  thanks to mike and the entire flex team.  merry christmas back atcha!

last month i had blogged that adobe was offering free actionscript 3.0 training.  this past saturday was the first stop (is it really a 'stop' if it's the first one?  a 'stop' implies they had been going already...?) of the tour in san fran.

there are 3 more stops scheduled in the US (Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago), with international dates to be posted soon (see http://www.adobeas3tour.com/ for details).

was it worth attending?  probably depends on where you're at with actionscript and OO in general.  for me, the answer is a resounding YES!  unfortunately, if you've not yet signed up, all 3 upcoming dates are filled (but you can get on a waitlist, which i'd strongly recommend... visit the URL above).

i wrote up a much more in-depth review over at fusion authority. 

if you have any questions, feel free to post comments here.

http://www.adobeas3tour.com/

Join internationally renowned ActionScript expert Colin Moock for an intensive full day of free ActionScript 3.0 training.

Don't miss this rare opportunity to learn how to program from one of the world's top ActionScript instructors. Open yourself to a world of new possibilities through Moock's unique methodology for demystifying intimidating concepts and code.

dates have been announced for 3 cities (san fran, los angeles, and new york), with additional dates and cities to follow.

fwiw, this is filed under flex because it seems that they'll be using flex as the development environment (rather than using flash), and under my "going OO" series since AS3 is technically an OO language, and it seems that they'll be going into objects and classes and all that fun OO stuff (see the overview of the course).

i'm currently registered for saturday oct 27 in san fran.  if you're going, ping me and we can meet up.

it was all very last minute... but i managed to get myself on the attendee list for flex camp this friday (27 july) up in san fran.

driving up from redlands with the family and plan to make a weekend out of it.  flex camp on friday... saturday and sunday looking at potential house rentals in anticipation of the move in september.  we have one appointment set up for a house in san ramon (which is where the new job is), possibly one in castro valley (if still available), and one in hayward that looks somewhat intriguing.

seeing as how i'm still relatively new to flex, i'm hoping to get to s.f. in time for the flex 101 session that starts at 4:00... but that'll depend on how many potty breaks we have to make along the way (5 year old, 3 year old, 4 month old in the car).  i'm still working my way thru the essential guide to flex 2 with actionscript 3.0 (which has unfortunately been slow going as of late), so i'm sure that attending the 101 session couldn't hurt.  either way, i'm looking forward to the sessions that i do arrive in time to attend and continuing my flex education.

anybody else attending?  drop me a comment if you want to meet up and be camp buddies :)

(oh, and thanks to scott stroz for the blog entry title.  you are my muse) :)

many of you may remember that back before MAX 2006 there was somewhat of a to-do (or maybe it was more of a brouhaha ... i always get the two confused) regarding adobe's distribution of some way-cool flex API posters. 

in the end, conference attendees got 3 very nice posters for free (which was a very cool move on adobe's part). 

i was hoping that adobe would make the posters available to those of us who weren't fortunate enough to attend MAX.  they did make the posters available for download in pdf format... but who wants to print off 3 gi-normous posters?  not me.  just to give you an idea of how big they are (since my wife has, in the past, accused me of exaggerating size)... check this out!

long story short... the posters are now available to anybody.  and the best part?  still free! 

well yes, there's a small catch (you're reading it right now)... but it's really a small price to pay for what you get in return.  i'd have been more than happy to help spread the word anyway.

well...you could.

if you're not fortunate enough to be going to MAX next week, but want to cut your teeth on some Flex coolness, Adobe is offering 3 free online 'eSeminars'.

Introduction to Flex 2 (31 Oct)
Introduction to Flex Builder 2 (14 Nov)
Introduction to Flex Data Services 2 (28 Nov)

sign up at:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=462539&loc=en_us

(i should point out that i'm not necessarily trying to dissuade those of you who will be attending MAX from learning Flex in your underwear. what happens in vegas stays in vegas, right?) :)