ScaleNine

What are you doing February 25-27th? You should definitely make the trip to Atlanta for the upcoming 360|Flex Conference. The news of what’s in store keeps getting better and it’s definitely a conference you should check out if your interested in Flex. It’s got a community feel where you can meet fellow developers and get your questions answered by some of the Flex team.

I’ve been following the updated schedule and the sessions look awesome. With free pre-conference training and everything else you just can’t beat the price of $480. I’m sure there will a few surprises as well.

This is my second time attending 360|Flex and I’ll be speaking about Degrafa, a declarative graphics framework for Flex. I’ll be discussing the features of the framework, how it may work in your development environment, where we’re thinking of taking the framework in the next versions, and showcasing the winning entry of the Degrafa Derby.

If you can make it, I’ll see you in Atlanta!

On February 6th I’ll be heading up to Los Angeles to talk about Degrafa at the LA AIR User Group. I’ll be covering the features of the framework, how it may fit into your development work flow, and where we see Degrafa going. If you can’t make it out to 360|Flex in February and you’re interested in Degrafa, I’ll be sharing some of that same material.

This event should also be a great opportunity to catch up on some of Adobe’s latest releases. You can learn more about the event on the LA AIR event page.

I’m happy to announce that I am joining EffectiveUI as a full-time employee and Experience Architect. I’ve been hanging out with a lot of the talent that EffectiveUI has pulled together, as well as working side-by-side with some of them to bring Degrafa to the masses. There’s a lot going on in the RIA space right now and it’ll be great to be in the mix with one of the companies at the fore-front of it all.

One of the most important aspects of putting together a successful application is the user experience, which is where my interest lies. I’m looking forward to being a part of a team that has put together some really awesome applications. Additionally, I will be making the move to the location of EffectiveUI’s main office in Denver, Colorado. Needless to say, February is going to be a crazy month for me, but I know 2008 is going to be a great year.

Whew, what a day! One of the projects I’m involved in, Degrafa, released the first beta today. I just now got some samples up to get you started. Right now only the SWC is available on Google Code, but we’ll be posting the source in the next couple days. We’ll also be updating the documentation and creating more samples.

If you’re not familiar with Degrafa, it’s a declarative graphics framework for Flex that allows you to use MXML markup to draw shapes, make complex graphics, create skins and also includes advanced CSS support. You can read more about the beta release here. Also, be sure to check out the documentation, samples and get in on some discussions.