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  • Revisiting the Flex whiteBox issue in Flex 3
  • One Mind, Now Universal
  • After Effects: Looping Banquet Video
  • Proceed With Caution: Adobe Flex Inline Functions in Loops
  • Local Adobe CS3 Event
  • Revisiting the Flex whiteBox issue
  • Time-lapse video fun reloaded
  • Time-lapse video fun
  • Now syndicated on Flex.org aggregator
  • Serious about Adobe Flex development? If so, you need AEDS

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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!

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

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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Time-lapse video fun

Posted on March 25, 2007 | Filed Under Local Happenings

My two younger children have been involved in competitive gymnastics for the past five or so years. We’ve recently been involved (as parent volunteers) in getting a new gym off the ground, and I thought it would be fun to give time-lapse video a try while installing the various apparatuses. You can see the results after the break.
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Now syndicated on Flex.org aggregator

Posted on December 7, 2006 | Filed Under Adobe Flex

My blog has been added to Adobe’s Flex.org blog aggregator. If you haven’t visited my site before, come take a look. I’ve documented multiple Flex bugs (verified by Adobe) including workarounds where available, app skinning issues and workarounds, Flex and RoR integration and other RIA goodness. Welcome, one and all!

Serious about Adobe Flex development? If so, you need AEDS

Posted on November 30, 2006 | Filed Under Adobe Flex

I’ve been working with Adobe Flex for about six months now. Prior to that, I had done some occasional work with Flash for the past few years. I believe in investing time in training to learn the “right” way to do things, so I started off by subcribing to lynda.com and watching their Flex training videos. We also purchased a copy of Total Training’s Flex series as well.

These resources were great starting points, but it didn’t take long before I found myself diving into things that went beyond the topics covered by the training courses. For the past couple of months in particular, I’ve done countless web searches trying to find answers on the flexcoders list and Adobe user-to-user discussion forums. I’ve also posted a few messages, many of which received no replies. It’s understandable with a new technology like Flex 2. The users with questions far outnumber the users with answers.

This week, we decided to look into the paid support programs offered by Adobe. They offer the Adobe Enterprise Developer Support program for $1,495 per year. If you are trying to develop a commercial offering, are under a tight deadline or can justify it by any other means, the value of this program FAR outweighs its cost!

I’ve already had a few rounds of correspondence with my Adobe Support Engineer and gotten answers to questions like he was sitting in the office next to me. I’ve been really enjoying working with Flex now that I have a direct line to the answers to my questions. So, take my advice…if you’re trying to get up to speed on Flex quickly, get with the program!

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