Marco Casario | RIAvolutionize the web

Get Flex Builder 3 for free if you're an unemployed developers

Adobe has re-opened the "Adobe Flex Builder 3 for unemployed developers" program. It means that

"Adobe Flex Builder 3" software is currently available for free, while supplies last, for software developers who are affected by the current economic condition and are currently unemployed.

Read the program eligibility and don't miss this occasion:

To receive the product under this program, you must attest to the fact that you are currently unemployed and acknowledge that the software will be used only for your personal use not for any production or commercial purposes.

Read more on Adobe Flex Builder 3 for unemployed developers page.

Spring Certification Training in Rome

Comtaste, the italian Spring Training Center, is organizing and hosting a Spring Certification course in Rome.  This is a great opportunity to learn more and get certified on Spring framework that is now more integrated in BlazeDS and Livecycle DS.

In fact SpringSource and Adobe started a partnership with the goal of making easy the integration between Spring and BlazeDS. Child of this partnership is the Spring BlazeDS Integration project, which allows you to integrate BlazeDS with robust server-side Spring services.

In this 4-day bootcamp you learn how to use the Spring Framework to create well-designed, testable business applications in an agile manner.
Through our trainings, you benefit from the wide experience and architectural expertise of our team. We bring that experience to you in a 
highly interactive, intensely hands-on setting. The Core Spring course not only focuses on explaining Spring features and how to use them, 
but also on fundamental architectural issues.

Date: 16 - 19 June 2009
Time: 09:00 AM - 17:00 PM (4 days)
Location: Rome (language: English)
Price: € 1500,- (last minute offer, normal price € 1975,-)
Discount: Register 2 students (10%); Register 3 students (20%)

During the course you will learn how to:

• Work with the Spring Inversion of Control (IoC) Container
• Effectively use JDBC and Hibernate for data access
• Use JUnit, Spring, stubs and mocking frameworks to effectively implement automated unit and integration tests
• Take advantage of Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) to keep code clean and maintainable
• Use Spring Security to secure web and standalone applications
• Manage live applications with ease using Spring's support for Java Management Extensions (JMX)
• Become a SpringSource Certified Spring Professional
• And much more

Adobe's New Flex Presentation Tool: Acrobat Presentation

I've just discovered (don't know how old it is) this new presentation web tool released by Adobe on Acrobat.com Labs.

Acrobat Presentation is a Flex application that adds to Adobe's online collaborative offerings (with Buzzword).

Presentation allows you to create slides using the PowerPoint metaphor with the following features:

• Add images (JPGs, PNGs and GIFs) from your computer
• Add shapes, fills, Borders & Gradients
  Resize, rotate and align your images
  
• Add effects such as borders, shadows or reflections.
• Upload movies (FLV format) into a presentation in the same way you add images
• Double-click to view in the Editor. They automatically play on the designated slide in Slideshow.
• and many more ..

I did not try yet but it looks good.

Pantaste, an open source library to create Flex/AIR-based customized start page

Comtaste has just released its second open source project named Pantaste. The library has been developed a couple of years ago, we've started working in Flex 2, but we did not find the time to make the final things, add the documentation, the ASDoc and so on.

PanTaste is an open source library to create ActionScript-based personalized start page or personal web portal much like  iGoogle, My Yahoo!, Netvibes etc.

The library gives you the ability to create multiple windows interface, with each window containing user-defined flex modules.

See an example of the library in action: http://www.comtaste.com/pantaste/PantasteExample.html

Documentation : http://www.comtaste.com/pantaste/docs/

It's time to start learning Spring to integrate Flex and BlazeDS with robust server-side services

Spring is one of my favourite frameworks. It's an open source framework that helps the developers' life. Thanks to the Inversion of Control (IoC) pattern that Spring uses, it will save a lot of time in developing.
In fact there are some factors you have to consider when you develop a Java application.Using the standard JEE approach you'll tend to write a lot of unuseful and repeatedly code or implementing J2EE design patterns that are workarounds for technology limitations rather than real solutions to a problem.
The Inversion of control - also known as IoC - is a concept, and an associated set of programming techniques, in which the control flow is inverted compared to the traditional interaction model expressed in imperative style by a series of procedure calls. Thus, instead of the programmer specifying, by the means of function calls, a series of events to happen during the lifetime of a programme, they would rather register desired responses to particular happenings, and then let some external entities take over the control over the precise order and set of events to happen (from Wikipedia).

That's why is important to have the possibility to easily integrate Spring to Flex applications.

Luckily SpringSource and Adobe started a partnership with the goal of making easy the integration between Spring and BlazeDS. Child of this partnership is the Spring BlazeDS Integration project, which allows you to integrate BlazeDS with robust server-side Spring services.

We strongly believe in this integration and that's why Comtaste has recently signed a partnership agreement with Spring Source, to support and train people and companies in Italy using the Spring framework.

These are the upcoming official courses scheduled:   

• Rich Web Applications con Spring Training (Rome 21-24 April2009)    
• Core Spring - Spring Framework Training (Milan 5-8 May 2009, Rome 16-19 June 2009)    
• Enterprise Integration con Spring Training (Rome 19-22 May2009)

We're also working on a training course dedicated to the Spring BlazeDS Integration project
where we want to introduce developers how to integrate the two frameworks.

Tour de Flex 1.2 now available with a brand-new web version

Tour de Flex is a very useful learning AIR (and now web) application that I often use during my presentation and Flex/AIR training courses to show Flex capabilities and resources, including the core Flex components, Adobe AIR, data integration, and a variety of third-party components, effects, skins, and more.
Moreover a brand-new web version of tha application as well as an Eclipse plug-in is available that provides a search interface to the 200+ samples in Tour de Flex.

Adobe has finally released Tour de Flex 1.2.  Below are the highlights (from Greg Wilson's blog):

• New improved skin (thinner chrome)
• Splash screen has been replaced by a quick start screen that we can update frequently with news of new samples, resources, etc.
• Fixed a memory/CPU issue  (see previous post)
• Comments are now hosted in the Adobe forums.  You can post questions, subscribe to responses, etc.
• Now requires AIR 1.5 (so we can include new AIR 1.5 specific samples and Flash Player 10 specific samples)
• Localization for Japanese - the language reference tabs are now pointing to the Japanese content.  More localization is planned in the near future.  Localization was actually part of the 1.1 release that we launched in Japan.  We did not force an auto-update since most existing users would not benefit.
• The download size is now 35% smaller thanks to RSLs.
• Categories are all tree-based instead of a mix of dropdown and tree (confused a few people)
• Minor improvements to Eclipse plugin

You can download the latest version from http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/tourdeflex.  If you already have Tour de Flex, your version will auto-update.

New Web Version!

In addition to a new desktop version, we’ve also launched a new web browser-based version of Tour de Flex.  Obviously, it doesn’t include the AIR desktop samples but most of the remaining samples are included.  Holly Schinsky did most of the “magic” to make the web version possible.  She will be blogging about the experience shortly.

Check it out at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/tourdeflex/web

The web version supports deep linking so the browser back/forward buttons work as expected.  You can even bookmark specific samples!

The primary purpose of the web version is to provide an easier on-ramp for those exploring Flex for the first time.  It also provides the ability to view samples from environments that don’t allow applications to be installed.

Updated my Adobe Flex Certified Instructor (ACI) to Flex 3 passing the Adobe Flex 3 with AIR exam

As an Adobe Flex Certified Instructor (ACI) I had to update my certification to the new Adobe Flex 3 with AIR Exam in order to confirm my Flex ACI.
So this morning I got and passed the Adobe Flex 3 with AIR Exam in a Vue center.

The exam has changed a bit against the previous Flex 2 version. There are questions about AIR and I did not find any questions on UML or Coldfusion Data Services.
These are the topic areas and percentage of questions delivered in each topic area:

Creating a User Interface (UI) 22%, number of question: 11
Flex system architecture and design 18%, number of question: 9
Programming Flex applications with ActionScript 24%, number of question: 12
Interacting with data sources and servers 16%, number of question: 8
Using Flex in the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) 20%, number of question: 10

I want to find the time to wirte more about the topics you have to prepare for passing the Flex 3 exam. So stay tuned on my blog :)

Comtaste is offering a promotional code for the upcoming Core Spring course

This is an interesting offer that I want to share with my readers since there's a integration (and a public  agreement) between Adobe Flex, BlazeDS, Livecycle DS and SpringSource called Spring-Flex.
Comtaste , Spring Official Training Partner , is glad to offer his readers a discount code to use for the upcoming course in Rome: Core Spring.

Use the following promotional code when registering: ROMA10

Core Spring is our four-day flagship Spring training course covering:

* The Spring Lightweight Container Architecture, including Inversion of Control
* Agile, domain-driven design techniques with Spring
* Effective JDBC and Hibernate data access
* Declarative transaction management
* Pragmatic AOP
* Unit testing in isolation
* Rapid system integration testing
* Introduction to "Spring Web"
* Remoting
* Web Services
* Spring Security
* JMS
* JMX

In this course, students build a Spring-powered JEE application that demonstrates the Spring Framework in an intensely productive, hands-on setting. Completion of this course entitles each student to waive the registration fee for the SpringSource Certified Professional Examination.

If you want to register you can use the following promotional code when registering to the Core Spring: ROMA10

You can read on the Spring site the Syllabus of the Core Spring course.

This is an interesting offer that I want to share with my readers since there's a integration (and a public  agreement) between Adobe Flex, BlazeDS, Livecycle DS and SpringSource called Spring-Flex.
Comtaste , Spring Official Training Partner , is glad to offer his readers a discount code to use for the upcoming course in Rome: Core Spring.

Use the following promotional code when registering: ROMA10

Core Spring is our four-day flagship Spring training course covering:

* The Spring Lightweight Container Architecture, including Inversion of Control
* Agile, domain-driven design techniques with Spring
* Effective JDBC and Hibernate data access
* Declarative transaction management
* Pragmatic AOP
* Unit testing in isolation
* Rapid system integration testing
* Introduction to "Spring Web"
* Remoting
* Web Services
* Spring Security
* JMS
* JMX

In this course, students build a Spring-powered JEE application that demonstrates the Spring Framework in an intensely productive, hands-on setting. Completion of this course entitles each student to waive the registration fee for the SpringSource Certified Professional Examination.

If you want to register you can use the following promotional code when registering to the Core Spring: ROMA10

Amethyst Beta 3, the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE for Adobe Flex, has been announced

SapphireSteel has just released the third beta of our Flex IDE, Amethyst.
This release incorporates features being developed for both the free Personal Edition and our commercial Professional Edition. The beta will last for about 5 months from the date of release.

Enterprise Flex Development Best Practices

Recently I've presented at the JavaDay conference about enterprise Flex and Livecycle DS development. The audiance was, of course,  made up of Java/JEE developers so it was very interesting to give some tips very close to their world (enterprise developers). I've talked about:

• UML Modeling Tools (autogenerating ActionScript 3 code shema)
• Source code management (SCM) Tools (integrated with Eclipse and Flex Builder)
• API documentation generation for ActionScript 3
• Build management tool
• Unit testing framework
• Java Frameworks integration
• Open Source Flex and ActionScript 3 libraries and components
• Flex architectures

I thought to recap all the things said and showed:

UML Modeling Tool (autogenerating ActionScript 3 code shema)

• Enterprise Architect - $239-$135 
• Visual Paradigm - $70-$59
• VASGen - Free
• UMLet – Free
• StarUML - Free

Source code management (SCM) Tools (integrated with Eclipse and Flex Builder)

• CVS (Version control system)
• Subversion
• Perforce / P4WSAD
• Clearcase

API documentation generation for ActionScript 3

• ASDoc

Build management tools

• Flex Ant Tasks
• Flex-Mojo, a Mavan Flex plug in

Unit testing framework

• Flex Unit

Java Framework integration

• Spring-Flex: it provides Spring BlazeDS Integration (RemoteObject e message services), SpringSource Adapter for LiveCycle Data Services ES which will provide integration with Adobe LiveCycle Data Services ( server push-based applications )
• Grails

Open Source Flex and ActionScript 3 libraries and components

• as3corelib
• Flexlib

Flex architectures

• Cairngorm
• PureMVC
• Mate
• Degrafa

Enterprise Flex / Livecycle DS / Blaze DS Courses and Training

• Flex 3 and Flex Builder 3 Developing Rich Internet Applications with the new Flex 3 SDKs
• Enterprise Flex Applications with LiveCycle Data Services and J2EE (Java EE)
• Enterprise Business Application with with BlazeDS and Java (Java EE)
• Designing Flex and AIR user interfaces and layouts
  
• Developing desktop applications with Adobe AIR, Ajax and Flex

Flex books

• Adobe Flex 3: Training from the Source
• Programming Flex 3
• Flex Solutions: Essential Techniques for Flex 2 and 3 Developers
• Enterprise Development with Flex
• Flex 3 Cookbook: Code-Recipes, Tips, and Tricks for RIA Developers
• Flex 3 Component Solutions: Build Amazing Interfaces with Flex Components
• Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0
• AdvancED Flex 3