Welcome!
Thanks for stopping by my site. I am a software engineer and content developer with 20+ years of experience creating software and multimedia content. I have participated in the design and development of three software applications and one multimedia production that have received "Best of Year" awards from national publications.
I offer information regarding RIA development using Adobe Flex, web design issues and media production tips here on my site. I hope my posts will help you to save time and discover new ways to use the tools available to you.
I am currently employed by Universal Mind as an Adobe Flex Software Engineering Consultant. You're welcomed to learn more about me or to contact me if you have any questions or comments.
MAX Conference Sessions Becoming Available Online
Posted on December 14, 2008 | Filed Under Adobe Flex, Software Engineering
Ted Patrick and his fellow Adobe evangelists have started posting recordings of the recent Adobe MAX conference sessions online at Adobe TV. Each session features a recording of the presentation/slideshow video and session speaker(s) audio.
There are a handful of sessions available now, with more coming in the next few weeks. I would recommend three sessions in particular once they become available. I attended them and they were great sources of info.
- Flash Player Internals (also discussed how the new Google SWF search support works)
- Using C++ Libraries in Flash Player and Adobe AIR (Alchemy Cross Compiler)
- Introduction to Flash Catalyst (Thermo) and the Next Generation of Flex (Gumbo)
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Inaugural BHAM-FUG Meeting
Posted on December 13, 2008 | Filed Under Adobe Flex, Local Happenings, Software Engineering
I participated in the first meeting of the new Birmingham Flex Users Group this past Thursday, December 11th at the Hoover Public Library. Things got off to a great start with discussion of the attendees’ backgrounds and possible discussion topics for future meetings.
Personally, I plan to present topics on memory management, bookmarking/deep linking, and project workflow based on my experiences as part of an Adobe Consulting team on the Verizon Wireless Media Store, new product and technology announcements from last month’s MAX conference (which I attended), “Why Flex?”, and others.
Adobe has also kindly provided free books, shirts, backpacks, pens and other items as giveaways that will be offered in future group promotions and meetings as door prizes.
If you are in the Birmingham, Alabama area and interested in learning about Flex, the “Adobe Flash Platform” (as it was branded at MAX) or Adobe technologies in general, I encourage you to join us at a future meeting!
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Adobe MAX 2008 Opening Session
Posted on November 17, 2008 | Filed Under Adobe Flex
“MAX - Connect. Discover. Inspire” is the theme of this year’s gathering. The Adobe CEO is now on-stage introducing the conference. He just said this is the largest MAX to date, over 5,000 attendees.
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Revisiting the Flex whiteBox issue in Flex 3
Posted on May 24, 2008 | Filed Under Adobe Flex
I expected the Container.whiteBox issue (discussed here and here) to be resolved with the release of Flex 3, but readers have pointed out that the issue still exists. With this in mind, I decided to offer another solution to the problem. The technique used in this solution is referred to as Monkey Patching. I first saw the technique described by my fabulously talented UM coworker, Doug McCune.
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One Mind, Now Universal
Posted on January 16, 2008 | Filed Under Adobe Flex, Software Engineering
I have decided to take on an exciting new challenge in 2008. I’ve joined the ranks of Universal Mind, the preeminent Adobe technologies consultancy in the RIA development arena.
UM has some very exciting things going for them, including being added to Inc. Magazine’s 500 Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies list in 2007, seeing multiple prominent Flex developers come onboard in recent months, and work on several prominent projects underway in 2008. The Universal Mind slogan, “High Impact Consulting”, says it all.
I believe that an incredible success story is going to be written for this company. I am both thrilled and humbled to be joining such a dynamic, knowledgeable team. Wish me luck!
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After Effects: Looping Banquet Video
Posted on October 28, 2007 | Filed Under Streaming Media, Video Production
I’ve been backing up and cleaning out old projects and ran across this video that I created for an end-of-season banquet for my kids gymnastics program. Their gym recently opened in a new location with their previous coaching staff being the new owners, hence the idea of continuing a legacy of a successful gymnastics program. The video features team and individual pictures taken during the previous program’s 30 year history. You can see a brief excerpt from the video following the break.
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Proceed With Caution: Adobe Flex Inline Functions in Loops
Posted on October 21, 2007 | Filed Under Adobe Flex, Software Engineering
I recently ran into a problem with Adobe Flex inline functions that I want to share with you. I spent a good part of a day trying to find the problem in my code only to discover an unexpected ECMAScript-spec’d behavior was to blame. Take heed of this if you use inline functions inside a loop.
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Local Adobe CS3 Event
Posted on April 29, 2007 | Filed Under Local Happenings, Website Development
I attended a two hour demonstration of the new web-oriented features offered by Adobe’s CS3 products, including Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash and Fireworks, this past Wednesday at Vulcan Park.
We were fortunate to have two great, well-qualified presenters in Greg Rewis, the Worldwide Senior Evangelist for Web Tools for Adobe and Stephanie Sullivan, a Dreamweaver, accessibility, CSS and XHTML expert who recently contracted with Adobe to produce the new CSS Layout templates found in the CS3 release of Dreamweaver. Both of these folks are prominent heavy hitters and well respected in the field. Thank goodness Atlanta is just a two hour drive away! Read more
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Revisiting the Flex whiteBox issue
Posted on April 29, 2007 | Filed Under Adobe Flex, Software Engineering
A few months back, I posted about a hardcoded whiteBox display object in the mx:Container object. I ran into a problem with my workaround after posting about it, but I forgot to post an update on how to deal with it.
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Time-lapse video fun reloaded
Posted on April 10, 2007 | Filed Under Local Happenings, Streaming Media, Video Production, Website Development
I’ve revisited the time-lapse video I did for the gymnastics facility that 2 of my kids attend. We’ve completed the setup and the gym is now open for team members, so I needed to add the remaining setup efforts to the original video. This time, I threw in a little special sauce―some animated titles and a bit of image keying. Read on to see the new version and for a making of explanation of the work on this round.
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