Adobe’s RIA technologies enable you to rapidly build and deploy the most engaging applications across browsers and on the desktop. The 615Flex user group is hosting a special live event to share exciting new information on Adobe’s platform tools and technologies for building RIAs. You’ll see an exclusive user group video presentation by Adobe Chief Software Architect, Kevin Lynch, hear some important product news, plus get your hands on some exclusive schwag and other giveaways. Be part of the fun and excitement and join the rest of the Adobe developer community by participating in this very special event.

When:
Monday, February 25 at 7:00pm CST

Where:
Dealerskins Office
404 BNA Dr.
Suite 600 (Building 200)
Nashville, TN 37217

Map and directions:
http://tinyurl.com/36gw67

Come to the Flex and AIR Pre-release Tour and you could win!!!

Adobe emailed me with more details today. If you have not signed up for the event, please do so. Along with a copy of Flex Builder 3 (when it comes out), or Web Design Premium CS3, Adobe will also be providing a new ipod nano to be given out at the event. Additionally I have word that there will be Adobe SWAG to give out too.What do I have to do to win you ask? Print out your registration confirmation that you get via email after filling out the registration on the special events page. Next show up to the event. It is that simple.

This Just in….. Jan 22, 2008

Dealerskins has been great as a sponsor of the 615Flex group. We currently have our monthly meetings at there offices and they where the ones that secured the venue for the event. They came to me today and said that they would like to sponsor giving away iPod shuffles at the event, so the have purchased 4 shuffles that we will be giving away at the event along with the other cool stuff.

The Food for the event will be provided by The Dave Ramsey Show. Please give Dave your support by giving his radio show a listen. Pretty good stuff that we can all relate too.

The PA system for the event will be provided by Shuff’s Music in Downtown Franklin. Please support them if you need instruments or lessons.

John Walker at Aristo Works was very kind in donating his time to build us a PHP based registration page and also the app that will be choosing winners for the event. I wanted to do a cool Flex app for this but time just did not permit me build one. Thanks John!Adobe has also provided us with a budget and I will be spending that on providing Beer at the event.

Sign-Up Now >>

ColdFusion? Isn’t this a Flex Group site? Well I have had a need to learn some CF over the last few days for a Flex project that I may be working on so here goes.

I haven’t enough time to actually learn any CF yet because of the issue with getting CF8 running on my local OS X Leopard machine. After trying just about every suggestion out there on the CF blogs I found one that worked for me. This worked well  on both my PowerMac G5 and my MacBook Pro. Here is a link to my personal blog where I have posted a video on how to set this up. Hope this helps for any of you developers that upgraded to Leopard and need a CF8 development environment.

http://www.flashalisious.com/2007/12/14/installing-coldfusion8-on-leopard-using-mamp/ 

At the Dec. 10th meeting we will be having a guest speaker form the Atlanta Flex group. I would like to have a really good turn out for this meeting. John Mason will be coming up on his own expense so it would be great if we could come out and support his presentation.

John will be demonstrating the new Adobe Integrated Runtime (aka AIR, also formerly known as Apollo). With AIR, you can now deploy your Flex or AJAX code into a fully functional desktop application. We will see how to export an AIR application from Flex Builder 3 and also how it installs on a client computer. During the presentation, we will see some of the internal features of the runtime including:

- File system API
- SQLite engine
- Clipboard drag and drop
- Offline/Online functionality
- AIR security model

As time permits, we will also review some of the common gotcha’s with AIR development and deployment. It’s a great time to be a Flex developer. With AIR, you can easily increase the scope of your work using your current RIA skill set.

Acrobat Connect URL for meeting: http://adobechats.adobe.acrobat.com/r99106993/

About the Speaker:

John Mason works at FusionLink, a ColdFusion and Flex hosting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. He has been programming with ColdFusion since 1996 and Flash since 2001. John was a contributor to the CFDJ and actively posts on several ColdFusion, Flash and Flex related lists. He recently became an Adobe Flex Champion, but he also holds an Adobe ColdFusion Advance Certification. He earned his BS and MBA from Georgia Southern University. Currently, he enjoys working on his Flex certification and building beta applications in AIR.

Meeting will be held at DealerSkins in Nashville at 6:30 on Dec 10th. On a side note Dealer Skins has offered to sponsor the 615Flex group by allowing us to use there Venue for all of our Monthly meetings. I know that this is a drive for some of you but this is a great offer so we don’t have to keep jumping from place to place, so we will be meeting at there offices until further notice.

Don’t forget this is the meeting that I will be giving someone there choice of Adobe Software. If you have been to at least 3 meetings over the last 4 months you are eligible to win.

Nov. 12th 2007 meeting will be presented by the “Dynamic Duo” Byron McClain and Ryan Kettrey. The Title of the presentation will be “Primitive Shapes, Database Access Layers: A Convenient Truth”. Not really much else that I can say about that! All I know is I had lunch with Byron and he seamed to be really sharp as in his understanding of SQL and building RIA’s with ASP.NET will cut you like a razor blade. As for Ryan…. I don’t know much about him other than that cool little “Vector Graphics in Flex” example that he did for us on the list.

I At the meeting we will be showing stuff in the box of Adobe Crap that you can pick from if you build an app for the group. Also Don’t forget we have just one more meeting in Dec. that will allow you guys to be in the Drawing for Adobe Software. !!!!

Meeting will be held at Byron and Ryan’s office in Brentwood. Magellan Press - Check here for directions.

Here is a little more about Byron and Ryan:

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Oct. 8th meeting will be presented by Deke Smith. The Title of the presintation will be “An Interduction to CSS is Flex”. This will be great for Designer and Developers. Understanding the Flex Framework and how you can skin your projects will help us all develop great looking Flex apps.

As we get closer to the meeting we will be posting a link to the Acrobat Connect Link that we will be using during the presentation if you can’t make it out to the meeting live, but remember if you attend at least 3 meetings between now and Dec. Meeting you will be entered to win Adobe Software.

Meeting will be held at AristoWorks office in Nashville. Check here for directions.

Here is a little more about Deke:

Deke Smith began his career as an art director. His career in new media
began when he used a program called Director from a company then called
Macromind and became excited about the potential of the new media.
Read the rest of this entry »

This is totally unrelated to flex… that is until Apple opens up the iPhone to run SWF files. I just installed a new plug-in for the 615Flex web site. This will allow any of you to browse this site using your iphone. It should automatically know that you are using an iPhone to browse the site and it will switch to an interface that has more of an iPhone interface look to it.

Let us know what you think!

The Nashville Flex User Group has been going strong. We started up around July of 2007. It has taken a bit to organize but the last two meetings have been great.

At this time I am looking for presenters. If you know AS3 and Flex or anything  flex related we would really like to hear what you have to say and how you use this great technology.

What are the benefits of speaking at our meetings you say? Exposure of course. We will archive your presentation on our site, post an article about your presentation our blog and  your blog or site, and anything else we can do to help get you noticed. On top of that you get the satisfaction in knowing that are helping the Nashville Flex user group grow and it’s members excel in there learning of Flex and AS3.

If you are not local to Nashville…… that is ok! We have an acrobat connect account and you can do your presentation from anywhere in the world if you like.

Please contact Matthew Wallace (me) if you are interested in helping the group grow and present us with some great insight on Flex and related technologies.

Hope this will be a good incentive to attend meetings. Free Software!!!!

Adobe is allowing me to give away some software in order to build the group attendance.

So here is how it is going to work….. Every 6 Months we can give away software to a group attending member.

Being that we are a Flex Group I am going to recommend that we give away Flex with charting. This is a $749.00 but if you guys have an interest in winning something other than this please let me know.

HERE ARE THE RULES!!! Show up to the at least 3 meetings between now and the final Dec meeting for the year and you will be entered to WIN. You must be physically at the meeting!!! You will not be entered if you attend via Acrobat Connect. Sorry. I think it is only fair if you make an effort to be at the meetings to win the software.

We will draw a winner at the Dec meeting!!!!! If Flex 3 is out by then you will get that. If not you will be able to get Flex 2 or possibly something else if you already own Flex.

Our next meeting will be on Sept 10th at Dealer Skins. The Speaker will be Ben Throop. Ben is pretty new to Flex and will be bringing a new perspective to you guys that are just getting started. If you are wondering what Flex is or if you are unsure why you should use flex in the development of web applications then you should be at this meeting. More info on the Meetings Page.

Join us via acrobat connect at 6:15 http://adobechats.adobe.acrobat.com/nash615flex091007/

Here are some of the topics Ben will be discussing - Topics may change based on the turn out and what you guys would like to hear about

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