Tag Archives: Conferences

Adobe Education Leader Institute 2012

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I’m gearing up in preparation for the Adobe Education Leader Institute [JULY 23-26, 2012] at Adobe’s San Jose offices. That’s two weeks from today! Always a great opportunity to connect with Adobe and others working in both higher education and K-12. This will be my fourth institute and I’ll be presenting a talk on the persistent value of the Flash Platform in education, doing a workshop in Flash game design, and also a few smaller things throughout the week: including a 5 minute talk based upon one of my AS3 Quickies.

Major session details are below – and I will be uploading slides, game assets, and any other materials in a future post following the conference.

What’s Going On with the Adobe® Flash® Platform and why it is still Relevant for Education
Wednesday, July 25, 2012 – Adobe Headquarters

With the recent rise of web technologies like HTML5, it is important that the Flash Player continually evolve to remain the ideal technology platform for advanced interaction on the Web and beyond. Flash has always been an important enabler for education, and remains so. This session details the various enhancements, new functionality, and general improvements available in the new versions of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR®.

It includes the following topics:

  • What’s new in Flash Player 11 and AIR 3
  • New ActionScript® classes, methods, and properties
  • When it is appropriate to use Flash Technology, HTML, AIR—or something else entirely
  • What we can expect in incremental releases of Flash Player 11—and within the entire platform ecosystem

Game Design with Adobe® Flash® Professional CS6
Thursday, July 26, 2012 – Adobe Headquarters

Joseph Labrecque shows you how to build a simple game for mobile devices that teaches concepts. You’ll assemble components into a mobile game that can be deployed to multiple mobile devices. We will cover Timing, Mouse Interaction, Character Movement, Object Rotation, Scrolling Backgrounds, Obstacles, Collision Detection, Game Loop, Scoreboard, Player Health, Asset Skinning, Sound Managers, Game States, Movement Constraints, Packages/Classes, Randomization, Garbage Collection, and Game Cleanup!

Prerequisites: Basic Adobe Flash Professional skills
Software to Install: Adobe Flash Professional CS6 OR Creative Suite 6 Design & Web Premium OR Master Collection

360|Flex Session Peek

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I’m presenting at 360|Flex in Denver this month – talking BlazeDS with Flex and Java! I’m putting the finishing touches on my slides right now and am including a preview below!

Leveraging BlazeDS, Java, and Flex: Dynamic Data Transfer

Flex developers have it easy when using ColdFusion to transfer data over the Action Message Format (AMF) transfer protocol because these services are built into the core ColdFusion server. What if you aren’t using ColdFusion though? Can you get the same benefits of AMF when using Java? Yes – by employing the open source Adobe BlazeDS project!

This talk will include an overview of these technologies, how to configure them to work together, and provide examples of data transfer across systems through a variety of ActionScript/Flex code examples. Additionally we’ll examine a use-case for BlazeDS, Java Spring, and Flex in higher-education to aid in the gathering of a variety of media types to perform assessment activities across departments through a unique system of binary and textual submissions by responder groups within certain participating programs.

So that’s my session, but there are a ton of other great speakers and topics being presented. A bunch of people from Adobe, Appcelerator, and Sencha are going to be there too. Nightly parties and extended training sessions on Sunday. All good stuff!

Check out the schedule!

Have a chance to chat with all the great speakers, sponsors, and attendees!

And don’t forget to REGISTER! It has sold out in the past!

My Adobe MAX 2011 Speaking Schedule

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I realized this morning that I have yet to write about the various sessions I’ll be doing during Adobe MAX in Los Angeles this year. Normally, I begin advertising these sessions much earlier… ah well. Here they are!

Adobe MAX - "From Desktop to Mobile: Application Functionality for Small Screens"

Adobe MAX 2011
From Desktop to Mobile: Application Functionality for Small Screens
Tuesday, 4:00-5:00

Explore the issues of moving an established RIA experience from desktop to mobile. Join Joseph Labrecque from the University of Denver as he discusses transitioning the viewing experience for a campus resource from desktop to mobile. This session will examine how to take advantage of new workflow considerations across Adobe toolsets and determine what existing functionality is suitable for mobile applications, investigate device restrictions that can impact the general user experience, and describe how to make users aware of a new mobile application and what to expect.

Adobe Education Summit - "From Desktop to Mobile: Application Functionality for Small Screens (condensed)"

Adobe Education Summit
From Desktop to Mobile: Application Functionality for Small Screens
Sunday, 2:15-2:50?

(This is a condensed version of my official MAX session)

FITC - "UX Concerns across Mobile Platforms"

FITC Unconference
UX Concerns across Mobile Platforms
Tuesday, 12:00-12:30

All three major mobile OS platforms have certain user experience expectations in place. This session will examine existing UX paradigms for Android, iOS, and QNX, the importance of adhering to user expectations through these constructs, and present some circumstances when deviation may be appropriate.

My 360|Flex Schedule

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360|Flex

Well, 360|Flex 2011 in Denver, CO begins Sunday, April 10th! Since I live in the Denver area, I’m going to be driving to the conference everyday. Hoping to chat with a lot of Adobe community people over the next week – say hi to Blucifer when you all fly in :)

Don’t forget to submit your questions for the Open Screen Project: Views from the Trenches panel being put on by RMAUG and moderated by Jun Heider!

I’ll probably need to adjust this between now and next week. Anyhow… here is how my schedule is looking so far*:

SUNDAY, April 10th:
Plan to spend the morning with my family

  • Noonish??? – Registration Stuff!
  • 1:30 – 5:00 Dan Florio – Introduction to Away3D
  • 6:00 – ?:00 Welcome Reception

MONDAY, April 11th:

  • 9:30 – 10:40 Keynote – Adobe
  • 10:50 – 12:00 Narciso (NJ) Jaramillo-Multi-Density & Multi-Platform
  • 1:30 – 2:40 Antonio Holguin & Jonathan Campos – Making it Mobile
  • 2:50 – 4:00 Antonio Holguin & Jonathan Campos – Making it Mobile
  • 4:10 – 5:20 Adam Leyman-Whats New in Flash Builder 4.5
  • 5:30 – 6:40 Flex Team Discussion Group
  • ?:00 – ?:00 Evening Reception

TUESDAY, April 12th:
I will have to travel to the university during the day for participation in an interview committee.

  • 9:30 – 10:40 General Session – There IS a Spoon
  • 10:50 – 12:00 Kevin Suttle – Post-modern web design
  • 1:30 – 2:40 Ryan Stewart – jQuery and HTML5 for Flex Developers
  • 2:50 – 4:00 Jun Heider – Developing ActionScript based applications for the iPad
  • 4:10 – 5:20 Huyen Tue Dao – Seriously, You Can Do Cool Things: Getting Advanced with the Text Layout Framework
  • 5:30 – 6:40 General Session – RIM
  • 6:45 – 7:45 Open Screen Project: Views from the Trenches (I am on the panel!)
  • 8:00 – 11:00 Community Leader Dinner

WEDNESDAY, April 13th:

  • 9:30 – 10:40 General Session
  • 10:50 – 12:00 Antonio Holguin – Your App is a Theme Park
  • 1:30 – 2:40 Dee Sadler – Logical Design for Developers – Design isn’t a four letter word
  • 2:50 – 4:00 Scott Janousek – AIR Wolf – Episode 2 , “Leveraging Flex to control a quadcopter”, “Flying with Flex”
  • 4:00 – 5:20 General Session – RJ Owen – Five Reasons to Learn Flex Despite Apple and HTML5

THURSDAY, April 14th

  • ???

*The schedule will absolutely change.

Would be great to be able to attend more sessions as there are some great speakers I’ll be missing out on… but I hear they will all be recorded as well.

My 360|Flex Proposal was Rejected… yet I am Thrilled!

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360|Flex

Like a lot of Flex developers out there, I went through the trouble to author and submit a session proposal for what is probably the premiere Flex conference on the planet: 360|Flex. Earlier today, I learned that my session proposal was rejected. While I would have been quite happy had my proposal been accepted, I am actually thrilled with the fact that it was not. You may, at this point, be asking yourself: “Why?” Why would I be happy about being REJECTED from such a prestigious conference???

This is why:

  1. Have you seen some of these topics??? Let’s eat!
    What a well-rounded and interesting bunch of topics! Think on this: these are only the topics I’ve heard about in passing. The full schedule is going to be AMAZING.

    Jun Heider – “Developing ActionScript based applications for the iPad”
    Antonio Holguin – “Your App is a Theme Park”
    Dee Sadler – “Logical Design for Developers – Design isn’t a four letter word”
    RJ Owen – “Five Reasons to Learn Flex despite HTML5 and Apple”
    Kevin Suttle – “Post-modern Web Design”
    Michelle Yaiser – “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”
    Dan Florio – “Introduction to Away3D”
    Brent Arnold – “AIR for Android: It’s easier than you think”
    Kevin Schmidt – “Real Time Gaming Data Services with BlazeDS and LCDS”
    Jeffry Houser – “Building Components from MX to Mobile”

  2. I will be able to focus on my book instead of prepping session materials.
    I’m actually almost half way completed with my draft chapters – well ahead of schedule. A little extra time never hurt anything! Sometime in the next few weeks, I’ll write a little about my writing process and some things I’ve learned.

  3. I will have time to organize Emergent Collective Two. Let’s rock!
    Yeah, I announced EC2 at the FITC Unconference at Adobe MAX last year… but haven’t done anything about it yet. I’ll be taking a different approach to gathering submissions this time; what that means, exactly, is up in the air. Now I have time to really think about this.

  4. I will be able to RELAX!
    What? Go to a conference and actually sit back, taking in all the great gobs of information… chatting it up with other attendees… and not having to worry about presenting, myself? Sounds pretty good to me.

Lastly, as I tweeted earlier:

360|Flex Tweet

Seriously.

Really looking forward to attending 360|Flex this April, in my home city of Denver. Hope many of you will join me!