Adobe Flex/AIR Certification?

So I’ve been contemplating studying for and taking the Adobe Flex 3 with AIR exam to become an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) and thought it would be good to solicit some feedback from the community. I would love to hear any details about how it may have helped you if you’ve already earned your certification (or if it seems to have made no difference), or any other details on the exam as far as how...

Flex/AIR Application Scope Tips

Since I’ve been developing in Flex, the one thing I’ve been trying to get a better handle on is how to go about accessing what I need and when. After digging in to the Flex SDK a bit, I have come to some conclusions on different properties and objects that can be used in different scenarios. The following summary is what I came up with and would like to share with others that may find it...

Tour de Flex Unveiled!

So I’ve just returned from Adobe MAX 2008 and I’m very excited about finally being able to talk about the latest and greatest application I had the pleasure of working on… Tour de Flex! If you haven’t already hear about it, Tour de Flex is an AIR application that allows you to explore and learn about Flex and AIR through a variety of code samples and illustrations. It includes samples for using the...

Flex/AIR to Java Communication Using Merapi

If you’re looking for a way to communicate between Flex and Java, there’s a great API available for doing just that. It’s called Merapi and is basically a bridge for sending messages between Java applications and Flex/AIR apps. I recently worked on a project for Adobe (shhh, until MAX!) where I used Merapi to communicate between an Eclipse plugin and an AIR app and found it extremely...

Generate PDF's from your Flash, Flex and AIR apps

If you’re looking to generate a client side PDF from your Flash, Flex or AIR applications, there is a great ActionScript 3 library available now for doing just that. It’s called AlivePDF and was built under an MIT license so you are free to use it in your applications. I downloaded it and tried it myself and was generating a PDF from my AIR app in seconds! I found it very easy to use, and without...

Data Binding Gone Wild!

The ability to base a property of an object off a dynamically changing value is a benefit of data binding that is often unknown or overlooked by Flex developers. However it is an extremely valuable feature and can save a lot of time coding and handling various events, not to mention much cleaner code! This is particularly true for those properties requiring a boolean, such as ‘enabled’ or...

WebManiacs Conference Review

I spent most of last week in Washington, DC attending the WebManiacs conference. I thoroughly enjoyed the conference, and maxed out my attendance to all the classes I could possibly fit in each day, spending most of my time in hands-on courses. I was impressed with the fact they provided the use of computers (except for the fact that they were running Windows!) and learned a ton in a very short period of...