Our next meeting is scheduled for July 8 from 6-8 pm at Appalachian Brewing Company in Harrisburg (upstairs). We’re going to start a series of meetings covering “Actionscript 3.0 Animation: Making Things Move!” by Keith Peters. Attendance is free, though you’re encouraged to bring a copy of the book and a laptop with Flash installed (if you have either).

Also, feel free to bring Flash-related questions or suggestions you may have for group. Hope to see you there!

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Thanks, apparently, to the software the Adobe Groups site runs on, the scheduled events are not being propagated to the members.  I canceled the original meeting and have rescheduled for June 17th, 7-8 pm.  I have not locked down a site for this meeting yet but it will be a one-hour meeting at which I want to accomplish two things: conduct the semi-annual CS5 software raffle (it has to happen this month) and discuss where we are headed in the “post Shane” future.

If this is all news to you, please read my posts from May 25th either here or the Adobe groups site (cpfug.groups.adobe.com).

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I’m sure that many of you have already heard that Shane announced his resignation as CPFUG manager at the May meeting.  Shane is trying to deal with the needs of his family and the demands of a new job and continuing as user group manager in Harrisburg doesn’t make sense.  I’m sure I’m not alone in expressing gratitude to Shane for all his work in getting CPFUG off the ground and running.  He will continue to participate as a member when practical.

So where do we go from here?

For the moment, I have agreed to take over as manager. I will continue in that role for as long as you, the group members, want me to.  But I can’t do it alone.  I don’t have anywhere the experience with Flash and other CG tools that Shane has.  I don’t have the community and industry contacts that Shane has.  So I will need help.

If you want someone else to take over, I would be willing to drop back to my role as co-manager.  If you think there is someone else who can serve in that role better than I can, I won’t be offended.  I want to see some life return to the group. I’ve learned a lot from you members and I don’t want to stop learning now.  I believe in contributing where I can, so let me know what you think.

Our next meeting is next week, June 3rd at 6pm.  UPDATE: This meeting will be held at JPL, 471 Jplwick Drive Harrisburg, Pa 17111. The main focus of the meeting will be a discussion of where we want to go as a group.  To add an incentive for attending, we will have our semi-annual Creative Suite (CS5) raffle.  Same rules will be applied as in the past.  You must be a member.  You must be present to win.  You must have attended at least one meeting prior to the giveaway meeting. Extra chances to win will be awarded based on the number of meetings attended, whether you presented, whether you brought a guest to any meetings.

So come on out next week.  I’ll even guarantee that there will be refreshments.  I will post an update as soon as I know where we will be meeting…it will be somewhere in the Harrisburg area.  In fact, if anyone has a suggestion for an alternate meeting location, please let me know.

If you have questions or comments for me, post a response here.

Since I’m not entirely confident in the functionality of the new group management system (Picard), I will repeat this post on the old blog and I will Tweet (from @CPFUG) a link to this posting.  I will try to post an event on this site but it may not let me do so without a location.

Thanks.  I look forward to seeing many of you next week.

Art

(I haven’t straightened out the admin on this site yet…that’s why it says “posted by Shane”.

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Date: May 6, 2010
Time: 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Location: JPL, Directions

The recent release of Adobe Flash Builder, the Adobe vs. Apple wars, the new Adobe Groups site, and now the availability of Creative Suite 5! Wow, a lot has happened since our last meeting. We will have plenty to talk about this meeting.

As you may have read, CS5 has a ton of new and exciting features. Join us as we go over those new features in Flash CS5. We will also go cover some new features of Photoshop CS5 as well. We will  also have some really cool giveaways to raffle off.

I hope to see everyone at the meeting! Please RSVP if you plan on attending.

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Date: April 2, 2009
Time: 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Location: JPL, Directions

Topics will include:

From PSD to FLA
by Doug Logan

Doug (manager of Cental PA Photoshop User Group) will be showing us how to take a design from Photoshop and properly slice it and place it into Flash for other developers to work with. Doug will take into consideration organization, optimization and revisions to the Photoshop file.

Object Oriented Programming- An Introductory Overview for the Non-Programmer
by Art Straub

If you are doing anything creative on a PC, Mac or Web-Based platform these days, it’s almost impossible to avoid interacting with object oriented or, at least, object based systems. It doesn’t have to be Java or C++ or .Net; HTML, XML, scripting languages, even Flash are built on the object model.  There are ways of dealing with these mechanically, without really knowing much about them.  But if you at least understand the concepts these are built on, there’s a good chance you can make them work better for you.  And if you can get past the “secret language” that object oriented programmers use, you might find you can actually use it creatively.

Art will present a high-level introduction to the major concepts of object oriented programming.  The objective will be to enable the members of the audience to participate intelligently in a discussion that deals in part with object oriented ideas and terms without developing the “thousand-yard stare”.

Qualifications: Art started object oriented programming 20 years ago and has been doing object oriented programming and design on and off since then.  He has taught programming classes for a number of platforms including ASP.Net and has lead teams developing system using object oriented tools.

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Speaker: Mark Piller, Founder and Chief Architect of Midnight Coders.

We will be teaming up with Central Penn Adobe User Group for a two part session on Adobe Flex. The first part will an online meeting on April 14, at 6:00pm. Part two will be at a live meeting at JPL on May 28.

Flex Sesson – Part I (April 14)
Live, Remote Event via Webconference:

• Optimizing Flex client/server integration with Java, .NET, PHP backends
• Testing and debugging Flex application

Flex Sesson – Part II Live (May 28)
In-Person Event: (at JPL)

• Generating PDF documents from Flex clients
• Tracking user behavior and analytics for Flex applications

This two part session will provide an overview of various techniques and approaches developers can use in day-to-day activities for Flex and Flash application development, testing and runtime optimization. You will learn about ActionScript code generator for remoting and data management use-cases, learn how to create real-time messaging applications, see a demo of remoting invocation debugger and AMF traffic visualizer. Finally, you will see a demonstration of user behavior tracking and analytics in a Flex application. The session provides a lot of coding samples and API reviews. It is targeted at a wide range of developers ranging from beginner level to very advanced. Parts of the presentation will be useful for management folks and they are welcome to attend as well.

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Date: March 5, 2009
Time: 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Location: JPL, Directions

Please join us for our March meeting. As requested, we will be diving into a lot of ActionScript 3 during this meeting. We will also be taking a look at Adobe Flash Catalyst, the new member of the Flash family.

Flying the Flash Falcon by Josh Kendall
Josh will be covering how to use Falcon with PHP (and other server side languages) and will be showing an advanced demo of what can be accomplished with it. Falcon makes your life a little easier and gives you a shorter and consistent way to access server variables, text, XML and binary data in Flash.

Keeping it Dynamic by Shane Hoffa
Shane will show how to create a custom image gallery using XML. By using XML, you are able to keep your Flash applications dynamic. Which means you can easily update your application by simply adding new text to the XML file.

Hope to see everyone there. Please RSVP if you plan on attending. See you Thursday.

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Date: February 5, 2009
Time: 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Location: JPL, Directions

Our second meeting of the year will be Thursday, February 5th. Topics will include:

Character Animation by Chris Buchholz
Chris will be presenting on the animation side of Flash with character animation. He will show tips and techniques on how to bring your characters to life.

Chris Buchholz is a designer at JPL. Although he specializes in illustration, he also does a great deal of graphic design, and flash animation. Sometimes he dabbles in set design, and prop creation. Once he did some bookbinding, and he’s tried to make paper. But he really wants to be a painter, or a fruit stand manager. Chris Buchholz does not know who he is. For this meeting, he will speak as though he is a flash animator.

ActionScript Message Format (AMF ) by Winton De Shong
Winton DeShong will be presenting why and how you would use AMF to communicate with flash and flex applications instead of traditional methods, such as; SOAP, WDDX, and other custom XML technologies. In addition to demonstrating the client-side flash and flex code, Winton will show how simple it is to get up and running with AMF on the server-side with examples utilizing PHP (AMFPHP/ZendAMF) and ASP.NET (FluorineFx/WebORB).

Winton DeShong is an Interactive Developer at andCulture and a Freelance Web Developer. His work over the past several years has included the likes of Scripps Networks, State Farm Insurance,The Philadelphia Eagles, Frans Lanting, Lutron Electronics, Yahoo!, and many more. Recently, he has been focused on building an enterprise-grade Flex and ASP.NET Application for Mount Nittany Hospital with the team at andCulture. Winton has extensive experience with PHP, ASP.NET C#, Javascript, Flash, Flex, Web Services, MySQL/MSSQL, and other technologies.

FlashEff / CPFUG Banner Contest
We will be checking out the submissions of our FlashEff contest and raffle off a license of FlashEff Premium between the participants. We will extend the deadline to Thursday (day of our next meeting) if you haven’t yet turned in your submission. Check out the contest info here.

Please RSVP if you plan on attending. See you Thursday.

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Date: January 8, 2009
Time: 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Location: JPL, Directions

Join us for our first meeting of 2009. I am looking forward to a great year for the group. Below are some of the topics that we will cover on Thursday.

Gaia Framework by Rich Hauck
Rich will present on the benefits and limitations with using the Gaia Framework, as well as give a step-by-step introduction on how to get started with building a website using Gaia.

Rich Hauck has been using Flash for 10 years and has worked in ActionScript and MXML for a range of clients, from Fortune 500 companies to small business startups. Rich recently moved back in into the Harrisburg area after completing a masters degree at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. He is currently Creative Director at Hauck Interactive, Inc. and will be teaching digital photography at Harrisburg Area Community College in Spring 2009.

TweenLite Tweening Class by Shane Hoffa
Shane will briefly demonstrate how to setup and use TweenLite, the popular tweening class by GreenSock. TweenLite makes it extremely easy to animate objects and properties with just one line of code.

New Benefit!
Come Thursday to find out what we will be raffling off all year long!!!

Please RSVP if you plan on attending. I look forward to seeing everyone on Thursday!

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Thanks to everyone who came out on Thursday. We had a pretty good turnout. Bart brought some beer and Tina brought Hershey’s candy. Here are some notes from the meeting.

Creating Screen Savers
Jim Almeida presented on creating screen savers with Flash and Zinc. With  Zinc you can compile your SWF Files into Powerful Desktop Applications (Projectors) for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux. Create Stunning Commercial Applications, Screensavers, Widgets, CD Roms, DVD’s, Kiosks and More.

I also showcased Screentime for Flash, which is another way to quickly and reliably build professional quality Flash screensavers.

New Co-Manager
Josh Kendall is the group’s new co-manager. Josh has some good ideas for the group and will be helping to plan and organize future meetings. Use the Contact forms to get in touch with either of us.

Create a Flash badge, win a license of FlashEff
We have another license of FlashEff to give away. If you would like to be included in the raffle, all you have to do is create a Flash badge/banner that promotes CPFUG that members can place on their personal site or blog. The free version of FlashEff must be used in the entry. I will post more details about the requirements regarding size as well as the CPFUG logo soon.

CS4 Raffle
Congratulations to Art Straub who won a free copy of Creative Suite 4! We will give away a software bundle twice a year and will base it on a points system.

1 point – Attend a meeting
2 points – Bring a new friend
5 points – Present a topic

You may now purchase additional points to increase your chances. These will be $5 per point with no more than 10 purchased points per person. All of the money will go back into the group in the form of prizes, food, etc.

• In order to be eligible for raffles, you must attend at least two meetings per period (each half of year).
• Must be present to win.

New Books
Just added 6 new books for our Book Library. Check them out.

Up Coming Meeting Topics
Gaia Framework, AMF, TweenLite, Loading XML, Animation Techniques

Next Meeting
Our next meeting will not be the normal first Thursday for the month of January since it falls on New Years Day. So our next meeting will be on 1/8/09. Stay tuned for more info on that meeting.

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