Andrew Powell

The early bird pricing for Flash Camp Atlanta ends in less than 24 hours!  Tickets are on pace to sell out soon, so if you don't want to pay more later, go sign up now.  The early bird pricing is dirt cheap, only $40 for the main session and $15 for the introductory session ( an intro to Flash, Flex, and AIR ). 

A few days ago, we were having some internal discussions about Flash Camp Atlanta.  We had gotten a couple of topics in, and oddly enough, they all had a common theme.  So, through part of our discussions, we decided that we were going to have a theme for Flash Camp Atlanta.  The first theme we came up with, "80's day", had been done before and was a bit tired.  The second idea we had was much better:  "Enabling The Convergence of Art & Design With The Flash Platform".  

A couple of things inspired this theme.  Firstly, this document, by Christian Saylor, has been a huge inspiration in everything we do at Universal Mind.  Go ahead, take a minute or two and read it;  this post will still be here for you to read.  Second, Ben Stucki submitted a topic along these same lines (session descriptions are coming soon).  So what does this mean?  It means that we are going to strive to have all of our topics tie into this common thread through the day.  We've got a great littany of speakers lined up and it's an event that you won't want to miss.

REGISTER TODAY!

I'm also working on lining up a great venue (not Stats, it's been played out) for the community get together the night before.  Also, Delta Airlines announced a slew of cheap fares (as low as $80 roundtrip from Charlotte, NC) today that are valid for the dates of Flash Camp Atlanta.  

REGISTER TODAY!

Flash Camp is coming to the ATL! 

Flash Camp Atlanta is a full-day event featuring some top industry experts on the Adobe Flash Platform from both inside and outside Adobe. Come advance your Flex and Flash skills, meet members of the Adobe team and network with local companies and fellow developers. Sessions will be geared towards developers and designers with little to advanced level of experience with Flex and/or ActionScript. There will be plenty of giveaways, raffles and swag (and lunch).

In addition to a great Main Session (9am-5pm) there will also be a special Introductory Session (8-9am) for developers who are new to the Adobe Flash Platform.  This special session only costs an additional $15 (until July 30th and $25 thereafter).  This session will get these developers up to speed aspects of the Flash Platform like Adobe Flex, AIR, and Flash Builder.

Register Today

When:  August 28th 2009, 8:00AM - 5:00PM

Where:  Georgia World Congress Center - Room B405

Confirmed Speakers:

Greg Wilson

David Tucker

Christian Saylor

Carl Smith

Douglas Knudsen

Ben Stucki

Jesse Warden

It's going to be a day of great content and fun!  Go and sign up today so you don't miss out on your seat!

Register Today

We are trying to gain more information about potential attendees for Flash (Flex) Camp ATL.  If you would like to help shape the direction of the event, please fill out the following survey:

http://bit.ly/9SWSF 

We are trying to get an announcement together for early next week regarding the location and date of the event.

This friday, Flash Camp Orlando will be one of two launch events for Adobe.  There will be big news regarding the Flash Platform announced at the event as well as free software including CS4 Master Collection and FlexBuilder.  If you're interested in attending, head over to www.flashcamporlando.com and sign up today.

In addition to the Adobe announcements there will be great sessions on AIR, Flex, and UX.  

You can walk in to the event, but if you sign up today, your seat will be guaranteed!

Flash (Flex) Camp Orlando is this Friday, May 29th.  If you've been reluctant to sign up, I've got some things that may motivate you:

• There will be a big announcement from Adobe.  Think of this as a launch event.... *wink wink*
• We will be giving away a free copy of CS4 Master Collection
• We will be giving away multiple copies of FlexBuilder
• Lots of swag, this is a launch event, after all

The past couple of weeks have been pretty busy within the Merapi core, but all the work has paid off.  Merapi is finally open-source and available on GoogleCode.  The architecture has really changed over the past year, but the core functionality has stayed the same.  It's more of a change in how we get messages to the bridge than across the bridge.  Regardless though, after a year of forcing you to take our word for what it's doing, you can now go get the code and see yourself.

http://merapi.googlecode.com/
http://merapi-examples.googlecode.com/
http://groups.google.com/group/merapi-project

At some point I will go over some of the changes that are coming to the Java side, but the short, short version is that we're going to be integrating tightly with Spring and leveraging some of the powerful DI that Spring gives us to make the Bridge dynamically configurable.  More on that to come later though.  Go over to GoogleCode, join the group and let us know what you think!

Here are the slides from my presentation this week at 360Flex.  I should have the updated samples into the SVN repository later this week.

http://static.infoaccelerator.net/files/FlexServerLib.pdf

There has been some confusion as to what FlashCamp Orlando really is.  FlashCamp is the new name that Adobe wishes to use for the events formerly known as FlexCamps.  The content that you can expect for FlashCamp Orlando covers:

• UX
• AIR
• BlazeDS
• Flash Catalyst
• Flex

A lot of people think that BlazeDS (and LCDS, for that matter) is a server.  They think it's something that you can deploy, like ColdFusion, and write apps on it.  Not quite, the case, but not too far off either.

BlazeDS is not a server.

Let's say that again, so you understand it.  BlazeDS is not a server.

BlazeDS is a set of servlets and listeners that you can add to your J2EE web application to access your service layer via the AMF protocol.  You don't deploy BlazeDS on its own unless you want to do purely messaging.  90% of deployments are done as part of a larger web project.  BlazeDS is simply another tool that you can use to expose your services to AMF clients (not just Flex).  

Further proof that BlazeDS exists as part of the J2EE ecosystem came late last year when SpringSource announced Spring/BlazeDS Integration.  This virtually removed the MessageBrokerServlet from the equation, routing messages through Spring's MVC architecture instead.  BlazeDS, the guts of it at least, was still responsible for the leg work in processing the AMF requests, but the easy integration into the Spring Framework really made it apparent that BlazeDS is not a server.

Lastly, BlazeDS is easy to incorporate into ColdFusion.  ColdFusion is, at it's roots, a J2EE web app.  BlazeDS is just another piece you can integrate into the web app to enable access to Java and CFC services via AMF.

Any questions?