Flash in the Peg’s next meeting will be a crash course in version control - what it is, how it can prevent those headaches, and how to get it up and running with a minimum of fuss. We’ll look at a number of version control options and consider the benefits and drawbacks of each one. Whether you’re a one-person shop or a company with multiple employees and remote workers, there’s a version control solution out there for you. You’ll leave the meeting with a better sense of your version control options, and what would work best in your own situation.

We’ll be meeting on Thursday, August 7th, at 7:00 p.m., in Room W411, Red River College, Princess Street Campus. Please r.s.v.p. to me directly if you’re planning to attend.

We’ll take a look at some of the new features in the Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Soundbooth public betas that were released on Adobe Labs last week. Come on out and get a look at what might be in store for the next versions of these programs!

In addition to the regular prizes, we will also hold our bi-annual software raffle at this meeting. You’ll have the chance to win the Adobe software package of your choice with a maximum value of US $2100! But remember, you have to attend the meeting (and have already earned raffle tickets) to qualify for the draw!

Please let me know if you’re planning to attend.

At our next meeting, we’ll take a look at the mobile Flash ecosystem - what kind of devices are Flash-enabled, how Flash is deployed and used on mobile phones specifically, and how you can use Flash CS3 and Device Central CS3 to easily and rapidly develop content targeting these devices. We’ll take a look at some sample applications, and get the chance to look at some Flash content running on mobile devices that support Flash Lite.

As usual, there are some great prizes lined up, including a swanky Adobe messenger bag, a copy of Foundation Flash Applications for Mobile Devices, and more!

Our next meeting is all set for Thursday, May 1st, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. We’ll meet in Room W411, Red River College, Princess Street Campus.

Please drop me an email to let me know if you’re planning to attend.

To help get you started climbing that learning curve, tonight’s meeting will be an introduction to ActionScript 3, with particular attention to some of the differences between it and ActionScript 2. We’ll take a look at a lot of side-by-side code comparisons to see how some things compare between AS2 and AS3.

To top it all off, there are some great prizes lined up, including a number of books on Flash CS3 and ActionScript 3. Plus, everybody who attends will earn a ticket towards the raffle of Adobe software to be held at our June meeting! Remember, the software of your choice up to a value of $2100 US will be given away in June - the more tickets you’ve earned, the better your chance of winning. As if the great content at the meeting isn’t reason enough to attend!

Our meeting is scheduled for tonight, Thursday, April 4, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. We’ll meet at our usual location, room W411, Red River College, Princess Street Campus.

Learning ActionScript 3.0, by Rich Shupe and Zevan Rosser is, overall, a great introduction to AS3. The chapters are well organized, with a quick run-through of some familiar ActionScript concepts and code. If you’ve written any ActionScript before, you can skip this part, or skim through it just for some reassurance that not everything in AS3 is completely different from what you already know.

The subsequent chapters cover major aspects of ActionScript programming, ranging from graphics to sound and video to loading pretty much any sort of data. For example, the new display list in AS3 is thoroughly and clearly explained; as somebody still relatively new to AS3 I found this to be a pretty significant change to the way I think about Flash, so I appreciated how well the authors covered this part of AS3. And if you think that everything in AS3 only got more complicated, this book is worth it alone for the chapter on working with XML. These and other topics are explained clearly and thoroughly. The authors are both teachers at New York’s School of Visual Arts, and their experience as educators shows through in their writing.

A neat aspect of the book is how it gradually transitions you into thinking about Object-Oriented Programming. For many people, the thought of having to do this with AS3 can be pretty scary. Initially, the code samples are meant to be placed right on the timeline. But part way in you get a primer on OOP. The book explains the concepts behind OOP very well, and gives the right amount of information - enough to get you going, but not so much that you’ll get scared off at the thought of OOP. The code samples are no longer on the timeline, and suddenly you’re working with object-oriented code, and it makes sense.

Those who are already familiar with AS2 will probably get the most out of Learning ActionScript 3.0. If you’re new to programming, and not just new to ActionScript, then this probably won’t end up as the primary book you’ll use to learn how to code. For example, topics that would normally get their own chapters in a ‘learn how to code’ book, such as variables, get only a section of a chapter by way of introduction. If you’ve already done some coding, this will be enough to reassure you that not everything is significantly different in AS3, but if you’re new to programming, you might want something that spends a little more time on the basics.

In addition, the book would have benefitted from another round of proofing. There were a few typos that, although minor, were a bit of a distraction. The typos that I came across were pretty minor - nothing that you won’t immediately notice, but it’s too bad that they’re there in the first place. And to be fair, I think I noticed only about a half-dozen throughout the book. (By the by, the errata page at the book’s companion web site is much more complete than the page on O’Reilly’s web site.)

Obviously, if the most significant criticism I can make of this book is that there were a few too many typos for my liking, I think it’s a very good book. If you’re looking to make the jump into ActionScript 3 coding, Learning ActionScript 3.0 is a great place to start your education.

Flex 3 is a feature-packed release, adding new UI components like the advanced datagrid and improved CSS capabilities; powerful tooling additions like refactoring; and extensive testing tools including memory and performance profiling, plus support for automated functional testing in Flex Builder 3.

Adobe AIR is game-changing in so many ways, delivering rich Internet applications (RIA) on the desktop, enabling access to the local file system, system tray, notifications and much more. Now you can write RIAs on the desktop using the same skills that you’ve been already using to create great web apps including both Flex and AJAX.

We’ll watch a number of presentations to help bring you up to speed on what Flex and AIR are all about. I’ll demo some simple AIR apps to show you just what you can accomplish with AIR, and give a quick demonstration of how easy it is to create an AIR application from your legacy apps using the freely available AIR SDK. (Most of the meeting will be about AIR - we’ll take a closer look at Flex at a later meeting.)

In addition to the copy of Adobe Flex Builder 3 Professional, we’ll also be raffling off some books and other great prizes you won’t want to miss. Plus, Adobe has sent some great AIR 1.0 t-shirts and posters.

If you haven’t already, let me know if you’ll be attending! We’re meeting at 7:00 tonight at Red River College, Princess Street campus, room W411.

Be part of the fun and excitement and join the rest of the Adobe developer community by participating in this very special event.

The meeting will be held on Monday, February 25 at our usual location, Room W411, Red River College, Princess Street campus.

Please let me know if you’re planning to attend!