Marco Casario | RIAvolutionize the web

AIR Camp Italy was a great success

The AIR Camp Italy was a great success.
Enrique Duvos, Adobe Platform Evanglesist, made a wonderful job showing a lot of cool AIR examples and explaining the possibilities that AIR opens.
My speech was about the way you can create, export and deploy AIR Application using  Dremaweaver CS 3 AIR exentsion, Flex Builder and Flash CS3.
I talked on the importance of the analysis and desing of a Rich Internet Application in Flex, AJAX or Flash. I showed some tecniques and some architecture to implement for the development of application in order to produce a clear, stable and more reusable ActionScript 3 code (ModelGlue, CairnGorm, some J2EE design patterns).

Then Matteo Ronchi and Fabio Bernardi took te entire afternoon for a real AIR development course.

Adobe Italy's headquater and the catering service was awesome, too

AIR Camp Italy. All is ready

All is ready for the AIR Camp of 30th October in Milan oraganized by FlexGala.
Adobe's Italy will host the event and  we'll have Enrique Duvos, Adobe Evangelist, that will introduce AIR technology and will show us many cool applications developed for AIR so far.

Then Fabio Bernardi, Matteo Ronchi and I will present for all day long
AIR Camp is a real one-day free training course on Adobe AIR. So if you're a Flash, Flex, AJAX, JavaScript+HTML developer don't miss this opportunity.
I'll show some tecniques to create Mashup applications with AIR connecting to Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, Ebay services, Wheater Channel and YouTube.

This is the agenda of the event.

The AIR Camp is free but it needs you to register !

Package an AIR project with Flex Builder Beta 2

The fourth email  I received on how to package an AIR project with Flex Builder Beta 2, convinced me to write this post.
Something changed in Flex Builder Beta 2 to create an AIR Project and to deploy an air package respect to the previous Flex Builder Beta.

In order to create an AIR Project in Flex Builder, you go under File > New > Flex Project. A New Flex Project dialog window opens and thi is where you can choose the type of the Flex Project to create : for the web (under the Flash Player) and for the desktop (under the AIR Runtime).
Select Desktop Application as the application type.

Now that you have a project to export creating an .air package you can select Project > Export  Release Version. In this dialog window you can choose to add multiple projects and applications, and sign an AIR File with a Digital Certificate option.
Signing the AIR application is important to give a trust level to your project. You can use an existing digital certificate bought by a 3rd party vendors or you can  create a new self-signed digital certificate.
Clicking on Finish Flex Builder will generate the AIR package.

Sharing thoughts about Java, Flex 3 and AIR with the Italian Java Community

Yesterday we had the monthly FlexGala meeting and we had the opportunity to involve the Italian Java User   Group.
About 30 high-skilled Java developers to which I presented Flex 3, AIR and LiveCycle DS (very fast).
Only 3 or 4 of them knew or had previously heard talking about Flex and AIR and all the audiance were very impressed about the stuff I showed.

At the end of the presentation (where I did not talk deeply about LiveCycle DS since I had only 2 hours) we  had a great Q&A session where they made very smart questions and doubts.
Questions covered topics such as :

- Differences between Flex and  OpenLazlo.
- Does Flex 3 export in XHTML+Javascript (like OpenLazlo does) ?
- How is it possibile to integrate Struts with Flex RPC calls ?
- In order to use the AMF3 format, Do I need to buy LiveCycle DS ? [I talked about the developer license for  LiveCycle DS as well as Granite DS and AMFPHP projects. ]
- How a Flex application can be architectured ?
- Design Patterns in ActionScript
- Accessibility in Flex. Does it follow the Italian Accessibility law ?
- Do I have the possibility to install different version of AIR in order to deploy applications that run
under different AIR version (like Java Swing developers make for Java desktop applications that run on a  specific JRE) ?
- Do I have the possibility to restore an older version of my AIR application if the update process fails on  the client machine ?
- Security in AIR application. How does it work ? IS it different from JRE ?
- Does AIR allow developers to access to the system devices to communicate for example with the COM ports ?

My overall impressions about the meeting and about the Java community were awesome ! I love sharing thoughts  with developers that use different technologies and have different mindsets. And they were very interactive  and open minded.

Our next meeting will be on 30th October. We organized the AIR CAMP event !

Spry Framework, Dreamweaver CS3 and developing AIR Applications. Tomorrow at my speeches at FromAToWeb

Tomorrow I'll have two speeches at the FromAToWeb Conference. This is one of my favourite conference bacause it reminds me when I was a consultant for Macromedia.
If I  remember well, it was the first conference in Italy I attended as speaker.

Anyway, my speeches will be on :

AJAX web pages with the Spry Framework and Dreamweaver CS3
Introducing AIR Applications

I'll talk of Spry, use the AIR Dreamweaver CS3 Extension and the Adobe AIR Update for Adobe Flash CS3 Professional beta 2, some and comment some great AIR Applications.

Very interesting stuff, guys !
At the end  of the presentation I'll donate some books for free (thanks to the courtesy of FriendsofED) :

• Object Oriented ActionScript 3 (Peter Elst, Todd Yard and Jacobs)
• The Essential Guide to Flex 2 and ActionScritp 3 (Charles Brown)
  
• Flahs CS3 for Designers (Green and Stiller)

See you there !

BlueskyNorth is hiring a tented Flash and FlashLite Developer

I found this post on the Flash Lite Yahoo group, so I want to pass it along :

BlueskyNorth  is  currently looking to expand our team with the addition of a Flash / Flash Lite Developer to assist the Technical Director and Creative Team on a wide variety of projects for both our growing
portfolio and a stellar roster of clients. If you think you have the skills we are looking for, we look forward to hearing from you.

Job Spec: Flash / Flash Lite Developer

BlueskyNorth Ltd. is currently seeking a Flash / Flash Lite Developer to assist the Technical Director and fellow developers on a wide variety of projects for both our growing portfolio and a stellar
roster of clients. You'll be working with a team of producers, designers and animators to create world-class rich games, applications and other compelling, entertaining small screen experiences.

Responsibilities

Develop games/applications for mobile Participate in project brainstorms
Write and review technical specifications Self-manage your tasks and time
Create frameworks, templates and docum entation for others to use

Requirements

2+ years developing Flash content, games and applications (university experience considered)
Motivated research and development in new technologies ActionScript 2.0
Object-Oriented Programming exposure
Ability to communicate and collaborate effectively with teammates
Motivated self-starter who likes working on fast-paced projects
Good English written and verbal communication skills

Ideal

Bsc in Computer Science or equivalent
Flash Lite development experience
XML and XSLT
Server-side development (PHP, MySql)
Game and/or application programming knowledge in other languages
(Java, Symbian)

In addition to an exciting future in a growing, dynamic company, we
offer a competitive salary and the chance to work with charismatic
team in a central Newcastle location.

Addtional information and how to contact, here.

360Flex Conference needs your feedback to grow and make it better

Tom Ortega, published an interesting post where is asking to 360Flex Conference's past/present/future customers any feedback to make the conference better !

If you’ve gone to a 360 Flex event or plan to someday, go answer this three question survey:

360Flex Survey

It’s only 3 questions to you, but it’s worth quiet a bit more to me.

See the live results of the survey !

Adobe MAX Barcellona, a sangRIA conference !

The Adobe MAX Barcellona ends and they were 3 amazing days. The MAX Conference is a great conference for networking, meeting new people, old friends, attending great sessions, and talking to the gurus !

It was a pleasure to be part of this great event.

Thanks to my personal photographer (kidding) Lorenzo "sangRIA" Colloreta, here are the coolest photos of the Adobe MAX Conference 2007 in Barcellona :

Adobe MAX Flickr Slideshow

Have also a look at the photos published by my friend Pablo Parrado.

Pay attention to the photo where Sumi Lim (Developer Relations, EMEA) is dancing new york style salsa :) She looks pretty good !

My speech at MAX in a few hours : Creating and Extending Flex Components

At 1.30 pm I'll have my speech at the MAX Conference. The title of my session is :

Creating and Extending Flex Components
Room 115

If you want to learn more about Flex Component development or just want to meet me, see you there ;)

Comtaste reloaded : we make it RIA !

Comtaste's site has been totally redisegned. After two years from its born the site has new contents with a great section dedicated to Flex, Livecycle Data Services and AIR training.
We're working on the english version of the new contents, that  we'll publish on next days.