With the beginning of 2010 I have put breaks on my frequent speaking engagements. What I have decided, is to speak at select few events and venues, else for the most part keep to online communication. I will tell everyone about my plans for online sessions in a following post but for now let me talk more about the next event where I appear.
Going by the last few years, by the first week of March I would have spoken at atleast 4 to 5 events. However, this year is different and consciously so! My first event is 360 Flex at San Jose (March 7-10, 2010). You may ask why 360 Flex and you may want to know what I am talking about at that conference. Let me first attempt to answer the “why” part of the question and then I will talk a bit about what I am presenting on at the conference.
360 Flex is one of the few conferences that is run by and for the developers. Its one big meetup for all those who are part of the Flex community. Its not a stage where companies pretend to demo the future. Its all about great content, friendly experience and immense value for your money. Its a place where even the expert takes a few tips back with him at the end of the conference. So it was not prudent for me to skip this event. Tom and John have been gracious to have me as a speaker for past many 360 events and I have enjoyed each one of them. So when I had to choose a select few, 360 Flex comfortably made the list for all the good reasons I enumerated earlier in this paragraph.
So now that I am going to 360 Flex, what am I going to talk about there. Answer: some regular Flex stuff hidden under a fancy topic! No, just kiding 
I speak about the new Multi-touch support in Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2.0. I intend to talk about what this new support means and what it doesn’t and try and corroborate my statements with a few nice examples. It should be a good talk to attend even if you do not intend to build any touch screen applications in the near future. I will try and include a few essentials topics on touch screens and multi-touch as well to bring up to speed all those who haven’t had an exposure to this realm of application development.
If you are coming to 360 Flex, I would love to catch-up. If you haven’t registered yet, then without further adieu just follow this link to register for 360 Flex now.
Please lookup more about 360 Flex at — http://www.360flex.com/. For schedule go to — http://www.360flex.com/schedule/.
Before, I close, if at any time you were anxious why this speaking moritorium then here are my reasons –
- Every time someone travels from coast to coast in the US, the person emits as much carbon dioxide as a full year of driving a car does. I would like to do my bit and contribute less to the global warming.
- With the rise in the number of conferences and speakers, many events are becoming re-runs of the same old stuff, which you can easily Google for from the comfort of your home.
- Its about time I started leveraging online media (especially video). I could reach a far greater number of people and help many more.
- I am super busy with newer products in the making and customer work. Every time I am out I essentially slip down on my plans. I don’t want to continue to do that.
- I am very keen on open spaces style events and advanced events as opposed to the 101 sessions. Honestly, 101 sessions are best delivered via online videos. So I think
I speak on Flex and Java Integration, Flex and Hibernate and Collaborative real-time RIA this Sunday (November 22, 2009) at the No Fluff Just Stuff (NFJS) Rocky Mountain Software Symposium in Denver, CO. If you are in Denver and coming to the show, I hope to see you there.
My friends at Farata (Yakov, Victor and Anatole), who are a very accomplished set of authors, developers, mentors, architects and community leaders in the RIA and Java communities, have set up a venue for you to ask all your questions that pertain to the Flash platform. So go to http://built4flash.stackexchange.com/ and ask away everything about Flex, Flash, AIR, Flex and LAMP, Flex and Java, the Flash development community, open source projects in the space and more. Going by their past and current track record, I am sure you will not be disappointed with their great replies and excellent management. Do bear in mind though that the venue is very new. Help grow the community and help yourself by getting your questions answered!
http://built4flash.stackexchange.com/ is a site build on the engine created by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky of the StackOverflow fame.
Watch me speak on BlazeDS, Flex and Java integration. (Original Post on DZone: Meet the Author – Shashank Tiwari on BlazeDS, Flex & Java Integration).
This weekend, I will be speaking at the No Fluff Just Stuff Northern Virginia Software Symposium in Reston, VA. The symposium, as always, has some truly brilliant speakers from the world of Java, dynamic languages and agile software development. I have 3 sessions; all on Sunday. All my topics relate to Flex and Java integration. On Sunday morning at 9.00am I start off with a general and broad based topic: “Flex and Java Integration“. Later that afternoon, I explore the world of “Flex and Hibernate” and the promising domain of “Collaborative real-time RIA“. The session on “Collaborative real-time RIA” extends beyond Flex and Java integration and includes the larger context of collaborative applications and real-time systems.
Speaking on the NFJS 2009 Tour
If you are already at the symposium, please stop by at the sessions. If you are interested in these topics and are in the area, consider attending them. If you are nowhere close by and are interested in the topics, then do let me know, and I could perhaps plan a session in that geography, if there are enough interested.
Also, not to forget, a lot of what I speak about in these sessions, is covered in my book Professional BlazeDS (Wiley/Wrox, 2009).
The second edition of the hugely successful Flex (Flash) Camp Wall Street is less than 2 weeks away. This time the event is bigger (over 2 days — November 16-17, 2009), better (more speakers and more topics) and cheaper ($49 only!). Alike last year, its at the conveniently located New York Seminar and Conference Center — 71 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010.
There are a bunch of very talented Flex, AIR, Flash, LCDS and BlazeDS experts (experienced developers, celebrated authors, speakers and ideators) speaking at the event. As it stands, the speaker list includes James Ward, Yakov Fain, Jeff Tapper, Jeffry Houser, Wade Arnold, Christian Saylor, Brian O’Connor, Daniel Holth, Elad Elrom and Adam Flater, besides yours truly
You can lookup the details about the event and register online at http://www.flexcampwallstreet.com
Information on the schedule and sessions is available at http://www.flexcampwallstreet.com/sessions.html. You can read more about the speakers at http://flexcampwallstreet.com/speakers.html.
An idea of a party at the end of day 2 is actively brewing as well!
If you are interested, please go and register right away. The tickets are selling out fast and going by last year’s experience its highly likely that they will all be sold out soon!
Igor Costa has invited me as a guest on the next episode of SextaFlex, the Friday talk show on Flex. I speak about combining Flex and Java using BlazeDS. My talk is around my new book Professional BlazeDS (Wiley/Wrox, 2009).
If you wish to understand how best to combine Flex and Java and extend the power of BlazeDS to support production grade scalable applications then join the SextaFlex session this Friday, October 23, 2009. The session will be delivered over Adobe Connect, which you can access online at http://experts.na3.acrobat.com/palestras/.
Creating Rich Internet Applications with Flex and Java
My new book on “BlazeDS” was released earlier this week. I got my first set of author copies last night in the mail. It was a great feeling holding a copy in my hand. This book was written over the last many months as I toiled with a number of other things, including working on client projects, at the same time. Most of the writing was done in the nights and weekends. I must at this point mention that my family (wife and kids) was extremely supportive else this book would have never been possible.
The book covers a lot of ground at the sweet intersection spot where Flex based RIA and Java meet. It covers the fundamentals of the wiring, protocols, formats and the API that relate to the integration of Flex/AIR and Java in the first few chapters and then rapidly graduates to explaining advanced topics. Advanced topics include Spring and Hibernate integration, custom adapters and real-time data push. As the topic clearly suggests all integration discussion is in the context of the open source data services product from Adobe: BlazeDS.
If the subject of integrating Flex/AIR and Java interests you, then go grab a copy of this book from your local technical book retailer or order online at Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/Professional-BlazeDS-Creating-Internet-Applications/dp/0470464895/. As you read the book, please let me know of any errors. If you like the book, please rate it well on Amazon and/or leave a comment behind.
Hope the book helps the folks who are actively combining Flex (or AIR) and Java to create the next set of rich and robust productivity enhancing enterprise grade applications.
Starting Monday May 18, 2009 fun begins at Indianapolis. No, not the car race; its 360 Flex!
360 Flex is a unique and special event for many reasons, namely:
- Its the one and only event dedicated completely to Flex (and AIR).
- Its an informal event that is run for the community, by the community. Till this edition, there wasn’t much of a formal call-for-participation process either. Interested folks contacted Tom and John and if the topic was interesting and there was enough enthusiasm and originality, you presented your wondeful idea at the conference. This time the submission overwhelmed the nice mom-and-pop process and forced one to have some sense of formalism. Yet, it was still a comfortable process, full of open dialogues and community participation. No big wordy contracts and no restrictions on how you can share your material.
- Most, if not all, sessions cover advanced stuff. Hardly any 101(s) and Introductions. This is a huge plus for serious Flex developers.
- No big executive pretending his or her creation as the new wonder of the world. Aren’t we sick of the demo gods?
- A very affordable conference. Tell me how many $500 something tickets get you three days of intense sessions, lots of free meals, evening parties and more!
- Lots of opportunity to mingle and mix with all members of the community. Some of the best names in Flex (developers, authors, service providers, evangelists and the product makers themselves) gather at every 360 Flex. This is one of the best ways to get to know people who are deep into Flex.
So for all these reasons and more, I have been speaking at 360 Flex over the last few editions. This time I will be there again!
On Wednesday (May 19, 2009), I speak on “Flex in a PDF”. (You can check the schedule out for all the sessions and their timings) I am going to talk about the relationship between Flex and PDF and explain how not only Flex data but its entire rich experience can be housed inside of a PDF. PDF is a universally liked portable document format. With inclusion of Flex inside it, you have yet another access point covered; thereby getting your application closer to the universal access goal. In addition, this harmonious existence of “Flex in a PDF” opens up many newer forms of collaboration that bolster effectiveness and productivity enhancement. Stop by my talk to learn more.
I will write about the session and put up the presentation material after the show.
Coming Thursday (April 16, 2009) evening I speak on tuning Flex applications for superior performance at the Chicago Flex and AIR Developers Group. If you are in Chicago and are a member of this developers group then I hope to see you then. If you are in Chicago and are interested or curious about these technologies then being part of this group would be a good choice.
The session starts at 5.30pm with networking over some snacks. The presentation will start at 6.00pm and expect it to go on till 7.30pm. Details about the event can be obtained from the Chicago Flex site’s official write-up on the April Meeting on tuning applications for superior performance .
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