I’m John C Bland II

Husband, Father, Tech Author, Deacon.
Founder of Katapult Media, and full-stack polyglot developer.
Political Free Agents Podcast Host.

I create. I launch.

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I post regular fun on YouTube like me playing the bass and anything else I find fun. 

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Flex 4 Release Party Preso Recap

Last night I spoke at the AZFPUG and AZCFUG Flex 4 Release party. I am thoroughly happy I did!

What fun it is talking about something you’re passionate about and Flex 4 is definitely something I thoroughly enjoy working in and talking about. With that said, most of what I talked about was pulled directly from Flex 4 in Action. I had my fair share of plugs for the book throughout the meeting. 😉 Hey…it is a great book, biased or not.

Technically something always happens and, according to @nathanstrutz, I didn’t have enough dongles. 😉 I was missing my display connector(s) but thankfully @simpulton saved the day by bringing a couple and one worked. Big props to Ron Haberle for buying one. It wasn’t the right one but the effort must be awarded some kudos.

One example failed to work. It was about rotating an image around the center and the rotate not affecting the layout. Well…I ran the same exact code today…worked! BOGUS! To demonstrate, I put the code online for all to see how it works (view source is included). For simplicity, here is the mxml for the swf:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:Application xmlns:fx="https://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" 
               xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" viewSourceURL="srcview/index.html">
  <s:layout>
    <s:VerticalLayout paddingLeft="100" paddingTop="100" />
  </s:layout>
  <fx:Declarations>
    <s:Rotate id="effect" target="{image}" angleBy="45" 
              applyChangesPostLayout="true" autoCenterTransform="true" />
  </fx:Declarations>
  <s:BitmapImage id="image" source="@Embed('images/flex.jpg')" />
  <s:Button id="mybutton" label="Click Me!" click="effect.play()" />
</s:Application>

Other than that, everything was pretty smooth and I filled up 2 hours showing off Flex 4 and Flash Builder 4 goodies. What’s crazy is I had even MORE to talk about. Flex 4 is a beefy upgrade and solves so many problems. It shines a light on the fact that more online tutorials, videos, etc are needed. Ahem…maybe I’ll get some done soon. 🙂

#azfpug and #azcfug, thanks for having me. Catching up with everyone was a true treat. Keep rockin’ guys and keep @simpulton out of the weight room. That dude is lookin’ buff!!! lol

UPDATE

Here are some tweets about the preso:
@lavonwoods – here
@simpulton – here
@bwohl – here and here
@nathanstrutz – here
@alanrother – here

Preso on 4/28/2010: Flex’ing in Phoenix! #azfpug

This is going to be a huge treat for me. I’m flying to AZ for the first time since I left AZ for TX to attendee speak at the Arizona Flash Platform Users Group April 2010 meeting, their official Flex 4 release meeting.

Since I’m friends with the majority of the group, I’ll be pretty informal but still keeping a planned preso together. I like keeping it lose cuz those guys know their stuff and they always have excellent questions/requests of me (remember the Command Pattern in 10 minutes impromptu preso? That was interesting. lol). With that said, it probably will not be recorded but I gladly will if they are OK with that.

Either way…AZ will be bumpin’ some Flex 4 come Wednesday!

Adobe Flex Development Primer – Recording URL

https://experts.na3.acrobat.com/p35104921/

The session ended up covering Flash Builder 4 (briefly just to explain what we were looking at), mxml vs AS differences (ie – how to do the same thing either way), a brief on custom components, event architecture, data binding, and we started to go into custom events but decided to roll with a part 2. I will update the my schedule with a date/time for part 2. It’ll most likely be next Monday at the same bat time.

Take a look at it and let me know what you want to see in part 2.

Thanks to all who attended!

Join me for “Adobe Flex Development Primer” Session

My good buddy Guillermo (gman) asked me about some Flex info. He’s a solid PHP’er and said he wanted to get into Flex so I hit him back with some info on where to get started. I also, as I typically do, jumped on the opportunity to do a Connect session to help him ramp up. Last time I did this for a friend it was one on one. This time…I’m opening it up to the public.

Session Description
The Flex Dev Primer is a pure development session (don’t expect theory and graphics although you might get some) focused on helping non-flex developers ramp up to become comfortable with Flex in a short period of time. We will focus on Flex 3/Halo but will spend the last while discussing the shift in Flex 4/Spark.

This session will be recorded.

Connect URL
https://experts.na3.acrobat.com/flexdevprimer/

Session Details
Date: 7/13/2009
Time: 8-9 PM CST

I’ve updated my speaking calendar with the details. I will keep it updated regularly with any and all of my engagements as well as any changes to this session.

Tonight’s CFUG Preso Connect URL

Join me tonight for my “ColdFusion 8 .NET Integration preso”:https://www.johncblandii.com/2008/05/528-preso-for-azcfug-cf8-net-i.html on Adobe Connect: “https://adobechats.adobe.acrobat.com/azcfugmaycf8dotnet/”:https://adobechats.adobe.acrobat.com/azcfugmaycf8dotnet/.

See you there.

Speaking Schedule: UG and Code Camp this week

Just a quick reminder about my engagements this week:

Tomorrow Night (5/27/2008) I’m speaking at the “Phoenix ColdFusion Users Group meeting”:https://www.johncblandii.com/2008/05/528-preso-for-azcfug-cf8-net-i.html.

Saturday (5/31/2007) I’m speaking at the “Desert Code Camp”:https://www.desertcodecamp.com/ conference here in Phoenix. The sessions are “Adobe AIR Offline with LiveCycle Data Services ES 2.6”:https://www.desertcodecamp.com/signUp.aspx?session=414, “ColdFusion 8 .NET Integration”:https://www.desertcodecamp.com/signUp.aspx?session=413, and “1 code library, 2 apps (Web & Desktop)”:https://www.desertcodecamp.com/signUp.aspx?session=415.

Hope to see you there.

5/28 Preso for AZCFUG: CF8 .NET Integration

Alan, manager of the Phoenix ColdFusion User Group, asked me to give my cf.Objective() preso for the UG. I happily accepted. 🙂 So, here are the details.

When: May 28, 2008 @ 6:30
What: CF8 .NET Integration
Where: “UAT”:https://tinyurl.com/6lulu4 (possibly via Adobe Connect as well but we’ll see)

Description:
ColdFusion 8 adds a hot new level of .NET integration allowing ColdFusion developers access to the .NET Framework. Learn how to integrate ColdFusion 8 and the .NET Framework regardless of previous .NET knowledge.

See you there.