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Gumbo & Adobe Flash Catalyst @ BAADAUG

February 25th, 2009 | Comments Off | Posted in Flash, Flex

Last night I was able to attend the BAADAUG meet-up and check out presentations by Deepa Subramaniam and Peter Flynn on the upcoming Flex 4 (Gumbo) and Flash Catalyst beta releases.

The big news is both apps should be available as a public beta in a couple of months. Catalyst still has about a year to go for full release, while Gumbo is slated for release later this year.

The biggest change coming to Flex 4 is Spark. Flex v1-3 all used something called Halo, which was the primary architecture for Flex components where styles were deeply (and frustratingly) tied to components. Spark builds on top of Halo to provide a separation of component logic and visuals.

Why is this a big deal? This is the foundation of the upcoming Flex/Catalyst workflow. By separating the visuals (skins, transitions) of a component from the logic (functions, data), it’s possible to apply skins to a component without being a super-programmer. Currently in Flex, a designer would have to programatically rewrite components to create new and interesting interfaces. In one extreme case, styles are so deeply rooted it’s impossible to change something as simple as font weight without rewriting the component from scratch. Thus, Spark is a huge boon and blessing for the Flash platform and opens the door for something like… Flash Catalyst.

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Muggle Free

February 9th, 2009 | Comments Off | Posted in Personal, Rants

It won’t be obvious here on my personal blog, but I’ve been somewhat slacking in cyberspace. I’ve only posted a few entries on vj.tv in the last couple of months, I barely twitted, and this personal blog has been little more than a rant board.

I was a muggle for the last 2 months – I worked from 9:30am to 6:30pm weekdays. My commute was short, but it still involved a complex on-off-on freeway drive (to avoid the Maze) along with the blahs of “commuter traffic.”

This period was partly about making up for lost personal time along with managing transaction from start-up #1 to start-up #2. Mixwit took up most of my time and resources this year, leaving me in an uncomfortable position by the end of summer. By the end of the year, it was clear that we had to shut down the project if we were to ever get to phase 2.

From October to last week, I worked full time as a consultant for a well known music start-up. The pay way very good and a took advantage of the new income to make significant personal upgrades which I will talk about more over the next few weeks.

But anyways, I’m back. Muggle free. I’m my own self again!