One of the best ways to get a jump start on paying off those student loans is getting a good paying job after college. (Duh, you all know that.) One of the best ways to get a head start into that good paying job is to find fields or subfields where demand for spots outweighs available workers. (Duh, again.) If you can display knowledge in one of these fields right out of school, you can usually beat out the starting salaries for your classmates. (Duh... oh wait, that would be awesome.)
I'm happy to say I'll be at the Heartland Developers Conference in Omaha Nebraska this year.
I'll be talking about ColdFusion, and how it can power truly rapid RIAs. In order to explain the whole workflow, I'll be touching on ORM, scripting, Flash Catalyst, Flex 4 and Flash Builder.
Additionally, two other Adobeans will be making the trip, Paul Trani and Kevin Hoyt. Here's our lineup:
I'm starting up new little series entitled "Holy Crap, I'm a Mobile Developer." The idea is that somewhere along the way I developed the ability to build applications for mobile devices, specifically Android. Sadly I can't take any credit for this. The Flash Platform engineering teams did this to me.
In my series of demos, I'm going to show how to take a static Fireworks composition and turn it into an application running on a Nexus One. I start out using Flash Catalyst to turn the static composition into an interactive one (interactive composition sounds better than "dumb prototype"). After Catalyst, I add business logic using Flash Builder. Finally I use the AIR 2.5 SDK and the Android SDK to convert it to an Android app and drop it onto my phone.
My point here with these posts is to show off just how frickin' easy it is to get your stuff onto a mobile device with the Flash Platform. It's so easy that I can do it. That's not false modesty, I'm mostly a back-end ColdFusion expert; on the front-end though, I'm usually at a loss. Not with these tools, I'm not. These tools make me look like a front-end genius. So I hope you enjoy this series.
Adobe Developer Week is next week, and it is shaping up to be massive. We've put together a lineup of 19 sessions dedicated to current and pressing topics on the Flash Platform. In response over 20,0000 of you have signed up and are ready to learn more.
I'm personally doing two sessions:
Adobe Flash Builder 4 and Adobe ColdFusion 9
May 12, 2010 2 pm PDT
Flash Builder 4 and ColdFusion 9 were made to work with each other, literally. This session will show you the features in ColdFusion 9 that will make your Flex life easier. You will also get to see how Flash Builder's new features help to rapidly make Flash-powered front ends for your ColdFusion back ends.
Adobe ColdFusion 9 and Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5
May 14, 2010 11 am PDT
ColdFusion has always been about RAD. It continues to be the fastest way to create back-ends for your data-driven applications. Flash Catalyst can do the same for your front ends, making it easy to create Flash-powered content that people want to use. This session will show you how Flash Catalyst and ColdFusion can be combined for some lightning-fast application development.
So go sign up and be a part of what is shaping up to be quite a massive event.
Make sure you check out the rest of the content:
Welcome and Introduction to the Adobe® Flash® Platform: Ben Forta
Building Multi-Screen Applications with the Adobe® Flash® Platform and Adobe® Creative Suite® 5: Paul Trani
New Features in Adobe® Flex® 4 Framework: Deepa Subramaniam
New Features in Adobe® Flash® Builder™ 4: Andrew Shorten
Adobe® Flash® Catalyst™ CS5 for Developers: Doug Winnie
Building Mobile Applications with Adobe® Flash® Professional™ CS5: Create a Game: Paul Trani
What's New in Adobe® Flash® Builder™ for Java Developers: James Ward
New Features in Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1: Lee Brimelow
Creating Sexy Applications with the Adobe® Flash® Platform: Designer-Developer Workflow: Serge Jespers
A Basic CRUD Application with Zend AMF and Adobe® Flex 4 Ryan Stewart and Kevin Schroeder
Adobe® Flash® Builder™ 4 and Adobe® ColdFusion® 9: Terry Ryan
Advanced Features In Adobe® Flex®: Ely Greenfield
AS34J: ActionScript 3 for Java Developers: Chet Haase
Adobe® Flash® Platform and Salesforce.com: James Ward
Adobe® Flash® Builder™ for Adobe® Dreamweaver® CS5 Users: Ryan Stewart
Using Advanced Features with Adobe® Flex® & PHP: Ryan Stewart
Adobe® ColdFusion® 9 and Adobe® Flash® Catalyst™ CS5: Terry Ryan
Adobe® Flex® and BlazeDS Integration with SpringSource: Christophe Coenraets and Jeremy Grelle
Building Desktop Applications with Adobe® AIR® 2.0: Ryan Stewart
Since the cat's out of the bag on the fact that ColdFusion Builder comes bundled with Flash Builder, I thought it might be good to share some tips for using them together.
This article goes over using ColdFusion services with Flash Builder. It uses ColdFusion Builder and Apptacular to generate back-end services. It then shows you how to consume them with Flash Builder. Yes, it uses Apptacular, so if you want to get your hands on that, there is a download link. The copy of Apptacular included in this article definitely works with the demo. Past that, I know I've added some bug fixes since then, so caveat downloader.
So yeah, the title pretty much says it all. If you are a student, faculty, or staff member of an educational institution, looking to use ColdFusion Builder or Flash Builder for educational purposes, they're free.
It's important to note, that if you are looking to set up a lab of multiple computers, you don't have to get a license for every machine or student. You can use the license we give you to install on multiple machines. Just let us know when you sign up that you intend to do so.
