Andrew Powell's Flex, Java, ColdFusion, and AJAX Blog

Flash Camp Atlanta 2009

2009-07-09T10:07:35Z

Flash Camp is coming to the ATL!

Flash Camp Atlanta is a full-day event featuring some top industry experts on the Adobe Flash Platform from both inside and outside Adobe. Come advance your Flex and Flash skills, meet members of the Adobe team and network with local companies and fellow developers. Sessions will be geared towards developers and designers with little to advanced level of experience with Flex and/or ActionScript. There will be plenty of giveaways, raffles and swag (and lunch).

In addition to a great Main Session (9am-5pm) there will also be a special Introductory Session (8-9am) for developers who are new to the Adobe Flash Platform. This special session only costs an additional $15 (until July 30th and $25 thereafter). This session will get these developers up to speed aspects of the Flash Platform like Adobe Flex, AIR, and Flash Builder.

Register Today

When: August 28th 2009, 8:00AM - 5:00PM

Where: Georgia World Congress Center - Room B405

Confirmed Speakers:

It's going to be a day of great content and fun! Go and sign up today so you don't miss out on your seat!

Register Today

Flash Camp Atlanta Survey

2009-07-01T08:07:08Z

We are trying to gain more information about potential attendees for Flash (Flex) Camp ATL. If you would like to help shape the direction of the event, please fill out the following survey:

http://bit.ly/9SWSF

We are trying to get an announcement together for early next week regarding the location and date of the event.

Adobe Launch Event This Friday!

2009-05-27T09:05:20Z

This friday, Flash Camp Orlando will be one of two launch events for Adobe. There will be big news regarding the Flash Platform announced at the event as well as free software including CS4 Master Collection and FlexBuilder. If you're interested in attending, head over to www.flashcamporlando.com and sign up today.

In addition to the Adobe announcements there will be great sessions on AIR, Flex, and UX.

You can walk in to the event, but if you sign up today, your seat will be guaranteed!

Need More Motivation To Come FlashCamp Orlando?

2009-05-25T11:05:22Z

Flash (Flex) Camp Orlando is this Friday, May 29th. If you've been reluctant to sign up, I've got some things that may motivate you:

There will be a big announcement from Adobe. Think of this as a launch event.... *wink wink*
We will be giving away a free copy of CS4 Master Collection
We will be giving away multiple copies of FlexBuilder
Lots of swag, this is a launch event, after all

Go to sign up now before it's too late! Also, we have a new team package available: Buy two registrations, get the third one free. So, if you needed a reason to come to Flash Camp Orlando, I hope one of these is that reason. It will be a great day full of great Flash Platform content from top industry experts.

Merapi Source Now Available!

2009-05-21T07:05:49Z

The past couple of weeks have been pretty busy within the Merapi core, but all the work has paid off. Merapi is finally open-source and available on GoogleCode. The architecture has really changed over the past year, but the core functionality has stayed the same. It's more of a change in how we get messages to the bridge than across the bridge. Regardless though, after a year of forcing you to take our word for what it's doing, you can now go get the code and see yourself.

http://merapi.googlecode.com/
http://merapi-examples.googlecode.com/
http://groups.google.com/group/merapi-project

At some point I will go over some of the changes that are coming to the Java side, but the short, short version is that we're going to be integrating tightly with Spring and leveraging some of the powerful DI that Spring gives us to make the Bridge dynamically configurable. More on that to come later though. Go over to GoogleCode, join the group and let us know what you think!

360Flex - Say Hello To FlexServerLib Slides

2009-05-20T02:05:38Z

Here are the slides from my presentation this week at 360Flex. I should have the updated samples into the SVN repository later this week.

http://static.infoaccelerator.net/files/FlexServerLib.pdf

FlashCamp Orlando is the new FlexCamp Orlando

2009-05-06T07:05:32Z

There has been some confusion as to what FlashCamp Orlando really is. FlashCamp is the new name that Adobe wishes to use for the events formerly known as FlexCamps. The content that you can expect for FlashCamp Orlando covers:

UX
AIR
BlazeDS
Flash Catalyst
Flex

So, for less than $50.00 you can get a day full of content that covers all these topics. Go over to the FlashCamp Orlando site and register today!

What Is BlazeDS?

2009-05-05T04:05:48Z

A lot of people think that BlazeDS (and LCDS, for that matter) is a server. They think it's something that you can deploy, like ColdFusion, and write apps on it. Not quite, the case, but not too far off either.

BlazeDS is not a server.

Let's say that again, so you understand it. BlazeDS is not a server.

BlazeDS is a set of servlets and listeners that you can add to your J2EE web application to access your service layer via the AMF protocol. You don't deploy BlazeDS on its own unless you want to do purely messaging. 90% of deployments are done as part of a larger web project. BlazeDS is simply another tool that you can use to expose your services to AMF clients (not just Flex).

Further proof that BlazeDS exists as part of the J2EE ecosystem came late last year when SpringSource announced Spring/BlazeDS Integration. This virtually removed the MessageBrokerServlet from the equation, routing messages through Spring's MVC architecture instead. BlazeDS, the guts of it at least, was still responsible for the leg work in processing the AMF requests, but the easy integration into the Spring Framework really made it apparent that BlazeDS is not a server.

Lastly, BlazeDS is easy to incorporate into ColdFusion. ColdFusion is, at it's roots, a J2EE web app. BlazeDS is just another piece you can integrate into the web app to enable access to Java and CFC services via AMF.

Any questions?

Fight The Tax Day Blues With CFUnited Express Atlanta

2009-04-13T06:04:43Z

This Wednesday, if you're in the Atlanta area (that means you too Chattanooga, Macon, & Augusta), come on out to CFUnited Express. You'll get to see great topics on ColdFusion, Flex, & AIR, as well as hear from some great speakers, myself included. It's a great price point and a great lineup. Finish up your taxes, then come on over to CFUnited Express!

SpatialKey: Giving A New Perspective On Data Analysis

2009-03-31T08:03:26Z

Russell Ackoff was an organizational theorist who pioneered a lot of modern theories in "systems thinking". He was able to classify the content of the human mind into five categories that build upon each other:

Data - raw symbols; numbers, text, etc.
Information - processed data to be useful
1. usually provides answers to: who, what, where, and when
Knowledge - applying data and information to answer the "how" of the system
Understanding - an appreciation of the "why" of the system
Wisdom - an evaluated understanding of the system

This flow of data to wisdom can be applied to data analysis and visualization techniques too. To this extent, SpatialKey, changes the game in data visualization and analysis by visualizing your data simultaneously on a map and timeline.

Data visualization is changing. Everyone has analyzed their data over time since the beginning of data analysis. Does this purely temporal approach to data analysis tell the whole story of your data, or does it tell just a narrow perspective? If you could have more insight into your data and analyze it in more than a temporal space, wouldn't your data yield more useful information? A good number of data sets have a geographic component to them that is easily adaptable to a mapping solution. SpatialKey unlocks that aspect of your data and lets you visualize your data over both geography and time.

Modern systems, for the most part, limit the answers of information to who, what, and when. SpatialKey, changes that by providing a new insight into the where aspect of Information via the map. SpatialKey's primary strength is that it allows you to easily visualize large amounts of your data over both space and time while mapping the results and rendering a timeline. This opens new insights and enhances the knowledge derived from the information presented by SpatialKey. This is information that might not be derived from traditionally visualized data sets.

The information unlocked by SpatialKey creates a new knowledge that would not be available otherwise. The knowledge can lead to a new understanding of the trends in the data system, both temporal and spatial. Practically, this means that, for example, instead of seeing sales trends over time, you can now have new visual insight into sales trends over time by a given geographic area.

SpatialKey is the new standard for data visualization. It will help you to unlock new perspectives into you data, like never before. If you would like to experience SpatialKey, you can sign up for the private beta and use SpatialKey for yourself. The private beta is limited to datasets of 10,000 rows, but the actual application can handle datasets of over a million rows.

After you signup for the beta, import your data, or get some sample data from geocommons. Once imported, SpatialKey can geocode your data and get you started with data visualization like you've never seen before.

If you want to learn more about SpatialKey, you can head over to the SpatialKey website.

Walk In To FlexCamp Miami

2009-03-03T09:03:19Z

If you were thinking about coming to FlexCamp Miami, but thought you were too late to buy tickets, don't fret! You can walk up the day of the show and still buy tickets. There is a ton of great content and the event will be hosted by yours truly. So, hurry over and register now, or come on over the day of the show. There's still time left!

FlexCamp Miami Interview

2009-02-20T11:02:28Z

There are only two weeks until FlexCamp Miami. Are you registered?

Brian Rinaldi recently did an interview with me to help promote FlexCamp Miami. Click here to read it, then go and register for FlexCamp today.

Weight Watchers Mobile Point Calculator Fixed

2009-02-11T08:02:38Z

During the move to my new hosting provider, Slicehost, I hosed the Weight Watchers Mobile Point Calculator. Well, it's fixed and there are two versions, one that should work on the iPhone and one that should work on WML browsers (regular cell phones).

It should auto-detect your device type and send you to the appropriate application, but if not here are the links:

Mobile Point Calculator: http://www.infoaccelerator.net/wwCalc/wap.cfm

iPhone Compatible Mobile Point Calculator: http://www.infoaccelerator.net/wwCalc/

Why Spring/BlazeDS Integration Works

2009-02-11T06:02:01Z

Spring has been, is, and will continue to be the easiest way to deploy enterprise class services with your Java applications. There is a common pattern to the way Spring lets you expose your beans as services. What this means is that the methodology for exporting a bean as a Hessian service, a Burlap service, a WebService, or now, an AMF Service (via BlazeDS) is consistent. This consistency is what BlazeDS needed to be accepted into the Spring world.

Until the release of the Spring / BlazeDS integration by Spring Source, Spring has always been a bit of an interloper when it comes to BlazeDS. Sure, Jeff Vroom's SpringFactory has served many of us well for a long time, but it was always something extra that had to be added on to the BlazeDS configuration. To make it work, the services-config.xml file had to be modified and you had to specify special properties within the remoting destinations of remoting-config.xml. It was a lot of steps to make something that makes things simple work with BlazeDS.

Using the Spring/BlazeDS integration, it is no longer necessary to touch anything in the services-config.xml (unless you're changing the channels) or the remoting-config.xml files. It just works out of the box by exporting your spring beans just as you would for any other remote services. This consistent methodology will make it easier for teams to choose to use BlazeDS, and in turn, Flex for projects. It means that teams will get the benefit of AMF with, possibly, no refactoring of the service layer. All one would need to do is generate the AS classes to match the resulting datatypes (XDoclet can help a ton here) and you're done with the middle tier. This allows for more development time to be focused on the Flex layer instead of being mired in getting the middle tier setup.

By becoming more like other remoting methodologies in Spring, it appears that AMF and BlazeDS are ready to become prime-time players.

Amazon CloudFront For Static Content

2009-02-10T10:02:12Z

Recently, I've been playing around with ideas of how to improve site performance. One of the things we've done in the past, to improve performance, is move all static content to a separate server, on the same network, so that your application server (ColdFusion, etc) is focused on only processing your application pages. All static content is served from the "static" server and can be configured with things like content expiration and caching to help speed up site loading. Recently, however, Amazon has made great strides with their Simple Storage Solution (S3) platform. More directly, they have introduced CloudFront which can distribute your content to their edge servers from a S3 bucket. What does this really mean for you? Well, much like Akamai, CloudFront makes sure that your users are pulling the content from the server that is closest to them. CloudFront uses the following edge locations:

United States

Ashburn, VA
Dallas/Fort Worth, TX
Los Angeles, CA
Miami, FL
Newark, NJ
Palo Alto, CA
Seattle, WA
St. Louis, MO

Europe

Amsterdam
Frankfurt
Dublin
London

Asia

Hong Kong
Tokyo

So, no matter where your users are, there is probably a CloudFront location near them, which means faster content delivery.

Getting your content up on CloudFront is pretty easy too. You can use the Manager For Amazon CloudFront to help you create CloudFront distributions from your S3 buckets. Just a note, there are CloudFront limits you to 1,000 Mb per second of transfer and 1,000 GET requests per second. If you expect your application to go over that, then you've got a pretty popular application, but Amazon can accommodate you.

So, what is the difference between S3 and CloudFront? S3 sets you up in one of two locations: United States or Europe. CloudFront distributes your content to edge servers around the world. While S3 is fast, it is not as distributed as CloudFront. I have, recently, switched all the static assets of this site to be hosted on CloudFront. Take a look at the activity when you load this site and you will see a dearth of images coming down from "static.infoaccelerator.net", which is my CNAME to my CloudFront distribution.

CloudFront is a very cost effective and reliable way to help improve the performance of your web applications. It scales itself for you, and, it costs less than a new server to deploy. If you're looking for a low-cost, fast and reliable hosting provider for static content, go take a look at CloudFront.