Flashmech

After several months of waiting, FlashDevelop 3 Beta 8 is now out!

I’m a fan of this awesome editor, and I almost couldn’t imagine myself coding in any other environment now without FlashDevelop. After installation and running through, all I can say is that it’s definitely worth the time to upgrade.

Don’t take my word for it, give it a roll yourself.

Check out the list of new features being rolled out, or simply download it now. *w00t~!*

Huge thanks go out to the FlashDevelop team which puts together such a great editor.

That’s basically my concern after reading this article by Hank Williams that The EcmaScript language standards body has killed the draft 4.0 version two days back.

What will Adobe do now with its (suddenly proprietary) ActionScript? If AS3 is now no longer base on an open standard, and if Adobe wants to adopt another standard, will it mean that AS4 will be completely different?

If indeed it’s going to be different, how many developers is Adobe going to risk alienating, or worse, losing? The number of products that Adobe owns revolving around the language is also massive, and that only means a total rewrite for them. But that’s just the centre of the ripple.

There are countless web and desktop applications that are using the Flash Platform out there, namely Flash, Flex and AIR. While I’m pretty assured that if Adobe moves on to another standard, that a new AVM3 will take care of the next generation AS4, businesses with these applications as their core is going to suffer.

The reason? Well we’ve seen how AS2 wasn’t able to leverage some of the latest advantages of the additions to AS3. If businesses with big enterprise applications don’t move on to AS4, they are in the risk of losing those advantages, whatever they might be. However, if they do, it only means a total rewrite of their applications, spending additional resources because of this.

I should really stop being a paranoid. I really want to trust Adobe to make a wise decision. Read the article and contemplate what’s going and what’s not going to be.

Here’s a new contest organised by ScaleNine to challenge and show off your Flex skinning prowess!

Jump over to take a look at the contest details, some pretty cool video tutorials, and get started with it. This contest packs some really awesome prizes too.

I see this as yet another chance for me to work my right brain and understand the intricacies in skinning a Flex theme altogether. Definitely without a doubt, it’s going to be another great experience. *w00t~*

Me and my mates over at the Flex UG had this collective thought that since Singapore is not getting any love from the Adobe MAX Conference, we should organise a conference ourselves to make the Flash Platform scene more vibrant, relevant and real to all the businesses and students alike over here.

After months of planning with Shunjie (he’s the FUG manager too!) to lead us all, we’re proud to present to you The Actionscript Conference~! *w00t~!*

The Actionscript Conference (TAC) is the first actionscript based conference in Singapore, bringing renowned speakers from Europe, North America and Asia, covering a wide range of topics from Rich Internet Application, Flash Mobile, Adobe Flex, Actionscript 3.0, Flash Tools, Flash Player and Enterprise Development!

Tickets are on sale now, and we are very encouraged that after just one day, more than *25%* of the seats are already sold! There’s also a time limited offer still running, so don’t wait anymore and go grab your ticket today!

I should have really blogged about this earlier but work have to always come first. Better late than never I always say.

Come August 13th, I have the pleasure to be sharing with the Flex UG about Gaia! *w00t~!*

Are you thinking that it’s strange that I’m sharing something non-Flex in a Flex UG? *loL~* Well, the great part about our UG is that we get speakers to touch on a diversity of topics on the Flash Platform, though usually with more focus on Flex. This allows us to not just learn about Flex, but also what’s happening platform wide, which I think is really a great style to run the UG.

I’m really excited to be speaking about Gaia, as it is really a time saver framework. At the moment I’ve already drafted the outline (which hopefully will _wow_ the crowd), and planning to create some real world examples where Gaia is able to step in and save your ass in a tight deadline. After the session I’ll be releasing the slides and examples over here and annouce over at FUG Forum, so stay peeled!

What’s making me excited is that Steven Sacks, the creator of Gaia, will also be attending the session via our live broadcast. So for all those who are interested to attend but yet are not residing in Singapore or temporary out of the country, do remember you can catch us live too.

This is the part where I feel I should have blogged earlier. If you’re keen to come down to the Flex UG session this month, please RSVP as seats are very limited (only 3 more seats as at this writing). This coming month’s turnout might be the biggest yet!

For more information, you can check out the official blog post.
See you on August 13th!