The Official Flex Team Blog

If you happen to be in Prague this week-end, drop by the Web-Expo and check out Tom Krcha, our new evangelist from Czech Republic presenting the new Flash Player 10. You will get a chance to see one of the first presentations in EMEA on the newly launched Flash Player. The conference will also host presentation on Flex and AIR given out by Asinus, a Czech system integrators, so try not to miss this opportunity.

In the next couple of weeks we are attending a lot of events in Moscow, so if any of you want to hear more about Flex, the new Flash Player 10 and AIR try stopping at one of the following events to hear our presentations:

- The 4th Software Engineering Conference (Russia) 2008 SEC(R) 2008 – Adobe is one of the main sponsors, and you will have a chance to hear Enrique Duvos talk about Rich Internet Applications.
- Russian Internet Week is also on next week, and we will have a presence there as well: http://www.riw2008.ru/program/
- User Experience Conference will have Serge Jespers presenting.
- Russian Flex User Group is having a meeting on the 30th of October, so if you plan on attending we will also be there to present and answer questions.

Lyora MacRae, an intern on the Adobe developer marketing team, has begun publishing a weekly video called “This Week in Flex“, where she highlights two or three stories from the Flex community and a cool application from the Flex Showcase on Flex.org. She’s onto her third episode this week, and is getting much more comfortable in front of the camera.

Check out This Week in Flex on the AdobeFlexTV YouTube channel, which includes her weekly videos, and other good Flex and AIR videos that she’s found on YouTube for you.

This Week in Flex Episode 3:

This Week in Flex Episode 2:

The 360 Flex conference is only 40 days away, so time to register if you haven’t already. 360 Flex is one of the top Flex conferences in the world, and is back in San Jose this year, from August 18th to the 20th. The speaker list is a who’s who in the Flex world – Axel Jensen, Ben Stucki, Chet Haase, Jeff Tapper, Josh Tynjala, Juan Sanchez, Justin Everett-Church, Ryan Stewart, Tony Hillerson and a whole bunch more.

The schedule for the event shows three full days of sessions in 4 main tracks – How’d they do that, Application Development, Integration and Custom Components.

A number of team members from the Flex team will also be at the conference – we’ll be hosting a Meet the Flex team event on one of the nights.

Registration is open now, and is only $480 for the entire 3 day conference. Register soon, this is going to sell out.

There are a few Flex Camp events coming up that you should know about. The first is in Michigan, where the Flex user group is organizing a two day Flex Camp event with a hands on Flex training event for the second day. The event starts at 9:00 AM on Wednesday July 30th, and ends at 12 Noon on Thursday July 31st. Registration is $25 for one day, or $40 for both days. Registration is limited to 150 people, so you’ll want to register soon.

There’s also a Flex Camp event happening in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada on August 21st, from 5:30 – 9:30 PM. There are 3 presentations from local Ottawa companies, and 3 demos from companies using Flex. Again, registration is limited, so you’ll want to register for Flex Camp Ottawa. (Its free!)

If you’re interested in hosting your own Flex Camp event, you can learn more about hosting your own Flex Camp event at flex.org.

Now that the source for the Flex SDK has been available for 3 months I’ve already seen plenty of folks taking advantage and building cool projects. But I believe there are probably plenty of people who would like to make some contributions and don’t know where to start. JIRA to the rescue! We’ve set up a list of bugs that we think are perfect candidates for folks from the community to look into, just go find a bug that looks interesting and start fixing (put a comment in the bug to say you’re looking into it).

Additionally we’ve got a little incentive program going! For every 3 patches that we accept, we’ll buy an Adobe-related book for you off of your Amazon wish list. And for the first two people who submit 10 patches that we accept, we’re going to pay for their MAX ticket!

Please check out the Flex 3 Contributions page for more information.

The Flex Show, a bi-weekly podcast focused on the Flex community, has launched a new video version that will be produced in addition to the existing podcast. Episode 1 is up now on their site, focusing on an introduction to Flex Builder and building your first Flex project. If you’re new to Flex, or thinking about getting started, this is a great video to watch.

RIA developers: Got great code recipes marinating in your brain? During the Flex 3 Cookbook Cook-Off contest, share your code solutions in the Flex Cookbook site for a chance to win some great prizes, including a free ticket to MAX 2008, the entire set of books from the O’Reilly Adobe Developer Library, and more. Read more about it in the article.

Following last year’s hugely successful Flex Camp Toronto, the team at New Toronto Group has begun accepting free registrations for Flex Camp Toronto 2. Ben Forta and I will be speaking at the event, scheduled for May 15th, 2008 at the MARS center in Toronto. Head to the Toronto Flex user group website to register for Flex Camp Toronto. (Its free!)

If you’d like to host your own Flex Camp event, Adobe will help with the funding for the event. Head to Flex.org to find out more about hosting your own Flex Camp event.

- Mike Potter