Here’s the presentation from the LMMUG meeting the other week. You can download all the examples used in the presentation here.

I haven’t uploaded the source for the actually presentation yet as there a few things that are a bit buggy and unfortunately i can’t get any of the links to work using html tags and htmlText, and i just haven’t had time to luck into them. I thought it might be useful to some people if i just put it up in the state thats its in, and when i get a chance to have a look at it i’ll update it and upload the source.

Aral’s presentation from the same night Introduction to Flex 2.0 can be downloaded from his blog.

You’ll need Flash Player 8.5 installed to view either of them.

The first public release of Sparkle is here.

AKQA are currently recruiting permanent and freelance. Here’s what they’re after

“We are developing some very sophisticated web applications and require people with excellent object-oriented AS2 skills, with knowledge of design patterns and with good examples of application development, to work on various projects, starting immediately. There are both freelance and permanent opportunities – please send your CV and details to crdcareersATakqa.com (replace ‘AT’ with ‘@’).”

From firsthand experience i can tell ya they have great team there, and some really exciting work. If you fit the bill then get in touch, and hey, tell em I sent ya!

Something i covered briefly in my presentation the other day on AS 3.0 (the files are coming guys).

Default
You will get an error in AS 3.0 if a method doesn’t get passed the correct amount of paremeters i.e. if it expects 2 and you pass one you will get an error. This is a nice addition, but you can get round this using default values for parameters. If the correct amount of parameters are then not passed the method will use the default values instead of generating an error therefore making the parameters optional.

[as]private function testDefaultParams(noDefault:String, hasDefault:String = “Tink”):Void
{
trace(hasDefault + ” ” + noDefault);
}

testDefaultParams(“has a beard”) // Tink has a beard[/as]
Note that once you have specified a default parameter, all following parameters in that method also need a default value.

Additional
AS 3.0 also gives use the ability to pass more arguments to a method that it expects by using the … keyword[as]private function testExtraParams(m:String, …n):Void
{
trace(m);

for each (var s:String in n)
{
trace(s);
}
}

testExtraParams(“Tink”, “has”, “a”, “beard”);
//Tink
//has
//a
//beard
[/as]
So in the above example the first parameter is manitory. If it isn’t passed they you will get an error, but the second paremeter is optional and you can pass more arguments and access their values inside the method as an Array.

I’ve just got offline from judging the 10 projects presented for the Humber + RIT Interactive Design Charrette along with Gabe Kean of Born Magazine.

The idea was that 40 students (20 from each university) would be split into teams of 4 to collaborate and create an informative interactive experience on “Lake Ontario”. Each team wrote their own brief to fit the main topic.

(more…)

Now renamed to ‘London Multimedia User Group’

This month is all about getting involved in Adobe Labs.

First of all I will be doing an Introduction to ActionScript 3.0, the future ECMAScript-standard object-oriented programming language for the Flash Platform. Then Aral will be giving us and Introduction to Flex 2.0, the all new Eclipse-based IDE for building rich Internet applications.

Each session will be aimed at geting attendees up to speed with each of the new technologies so that they can get involved in Labs.

More info and register

I bought a PowerBook when i needed a laptop a while back. Although I’ve always used PC’s it made sense to get a Mac as it would give the the extra platform to test on.

So i’ve had been thinking about having a crack at installing Flex Builder 2.0 so I can mess with AS 3.0 on the Powerbook for a while. I’ve read a few threads about it being installed on a Mac but just avoided it cos i thought it could be such a hassle. Tonight i decided to give it a go my starting point Grant’s thread. So i was reading about installing flCompile and then read a few of the comments and found this posted by Carlington.

(more…)

This year I will be mostly taking up Extreme Skipping.

‘…ridin the world man
the world’s still spinnin
your just riding it’

Extreme Skipping

2005 was a great year for me work wise. The Flash Platform contiunes to go from strength to strength and I met so many Flash developers from around the world this year that i had huge respect for and now consider good friends.

From the post below you can see I got involved in my first book and I’ve worked on some great projects with some really cool people. Got myself out the FiTC, Flash Forward and Spark Europe and had a great time at them all (maybe too great, but hell i can’t help having fun!). I’ve also got more and more involved in the London User Group although I’ve spent less and less time on forums due to lack of time. I also joined IFBIN as an author which was another achievement to be listed amonst the amazing developers there.

Personally 2005 was pretty stressfull. I got very little time for anything but work, but i guess something has to give somewhere. I hope to try and balance this out a bit more in the coming year.

So this year… I still love Flash! I want to continue to get more and more involved and progress my skills. I have a couple of books lined up, I will be speaking at webdu in March, a new company in the pipeline and already a lot of work lined up. Looks busy already!!!

The first book I’ve every been involved in should now be in the shops.

I haven’t recieved any copies yet and I also haven’t been able to find it in any shops here in London (in fact not even if I ask at the counter), but you can find it on www.amazon.com (not amazon.co.uk for some reason?) and I here that other people have receieved copies.

Its a great personal achievement to be part of the team that worked on the book and I just hope people will find it useful. My chapter focused on 4 examples that used some of the new features available in Flash 8. You can download the files here.

More info about the book here, link to buy if your in the UK and link to buy if your in the US.