Rich Internet applications (RIAs) are everywhere. With Web businesses like Google and Yahoo! and brick and mortar companies like Harley Davidson and Sherwin Williams embracing RIAs for their online presence, the media buzz is giving way to the reality of a better Internet.

Adobe has recently contributed AMF support to the Zend Framework, allowing PHP developers to easily build Rich Internet Applications using Flex and Adobe AIR that interact with a PHP backend.

Ryan Stewart, a technical evangelist with Adobe, will give an introduction to Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR, and will walk through how to create a Flex application powered by PHP and the Zend Framework. Working with Zend Studio for Eclipse, and Flex Builder (an Eclipse plugin), Ryan will demonstrate how to build, debug and deploy applications built with Adobe Flex, and how to have these same applications run on the desktop using the Adobe AIR runtime.

With this knowledge, developers will be able to easily build rich Internet applications that combine data from PHP and rich media like audio and video into a compelling application.

Ryan’s bio can be found online at http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/?page_id=2

Get ready for the next iteration of Flex (Gumbo or Flex 4)!

First meeting at Empire Group, downtown Portland between the train station and the 405. Here's a picture.

We will do a quick Gumbo hello world and preview major changes to Flex: Thermo/Catalyst, CSS, component structure, etc. Bring your laptop, they'll be code samples.

This month's topic: Sexier Software with Flex and Java

Outline: Intro to Rich Internet Applications

RIA as the next generation of Software

Back to the Client-Server Model

Adobe's RIA Software Development Platform

Intro to building software with Flex

What is Flex?

Open Source SDK

ActionScript & MXML Languages

Components

How do you use Flex?

Compiler

Debugging

Intro to BlazeDS (Java Integration)

Installing BlazeDS into a Web App (WAR File)

Remoting (RPC style object invocations over HTTP)

Pub/Sub Messaging

Spring Integration

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Speaker: James Ward

James is a Technical Evangelist for Flex at Adobe and Adobe's JCP representative to JSR 286, 299, and 301. Much like his love for climbing mountains he enjoys programming because it provides endless new discoveries, elegant workarounds, summits and valleys. His adventures in climbing have taken him many places. Likewise, technology has brought him many adventures, including: Pascal and Assembly back in the early 90's; Perl, HTML, and JavaScript in the mid 90's; then Java and many of it's frameworks beginning in the late 90's. Today he primarily uses Flex to build beautiful front-ends for Java based back-ends. Prior to Adobe, James built a rich marketing and customer service portal for Pillar Data Systems.

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PJUG meetings start with some time to eat and socialize (pizza and beverages are provided), followed by the featured speaker, then Q&A, discussion, sometimes a drawing to give away swag. :)

Though we like knowing how many people to expect, you don't have to RSVP, on Upcoming or otherwise. Go ahead and just show up!

Many people also go for a drink and further discussion following the meeting, at a location determined ad hoc (more often than not, Jax on 2nd).

http://twitter.com/pjug http://pjug.org/ (join our mailing list, linked from the website!)

Matt LeGrand will present on Skin Classes in Flex 4.

This month at the PDX RIA we are going to have an open discussion about some of the frameworks that are available to Flex developers. This is a great opportunity to come out and ask questions and here what folks have to say about their favorite frameworks. Just to make sure we have a well rounded discussion I found some volunteers to represent different frameworks.

Matt Legrand - Cairngorm

Matt Garland - PureMVC

Simeon Bateman - Mate and Swiz

If your favorite framework is not one of those listed then make sure you come out and represent! Tell everybody why you like your framework best.

Pizza at 5:30, meeting at 6PM.

Meeting at PCC Sylvania Campus - TCB (Technology Classroom Building) Room 209

Portland Rich Internet Developers Group (PDXRIA) Summer Social!

This month we are just going to head down to the Lucky Lab in SE and network a little. If you've never joined us after the meeting for libations and conversations, you have missed out. We took that awesome part of the night and just expanded it till it was the whole meeting! This is your chance to brag about the cool stuff your building, or lament about the lame stuff your boss is making you build, or ask questions about the next thing you're planning to build. I think you get the idea. Come and chat and eat and drink. See you soon!

Writing Testable code with Michael Labriola

You all know by now that you should be unit testing your code, but do you know how? It is unfortunately really easy in Flex to architect code which is very difficult to test. In this session, we will explore how to build components and applications in flex which are inherently testable, and see how we test them.

Michael Labriola is a Senior Consultant at Digital Primates and the Lead Developer for FlexUnit 4.

Get there at 5:30 for pizza, drinks and networking. The presentation will start at 6:00 pm.

Writing Testable code. You all know by now that you should be unit testing your code, but do you know how? It is unfortunately really easy in flex to architect code which is very difficult to test. In this session, we will explore how to build components and applications in flex which are inherently testable, and see how we test them.

Join us Thursday, October 14, for food and networking at 5:30 PM sponsored by Thetus Corporation in association with the PDXRIA User Group. Our speaker, Michael Labriola starts at 6 PM.

Michael Labriola is a Senior Consultant at Digital Primates and the Lead Developer for FlexUnit 4. He has been developing Internet applications since 1995 and working with Flex since its 1.0 beta. Michael is an Adobe Certified Instructor, Community Professional, and co-author of the Flex 2, 3 and 4 Training from the Source books and Breaking out of the Browser with Adobe AIR.

As an international speaker and team mentor on Flex and AIR projects, he has consulted for many of the world’s most recognized brands. His free time is spent escaping from technology through wine and food.

RSVP: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/6735069/OR/Portland/Flex-and-Maven-a-joint-event-by-Thetus-Corporation-and-PDXRIA-User-Group/Thetus-Corporation/ Your RSVP enters you in a raffle for a Powell's gift card!

Interactive is not a goal - it is a way of thinking and approaching problems. Though we have orders of magnitude more power at our fingertips, real interactivity is still illusive - but it need not be.

Interactive applications have been a multi-decade goal. Flex is yet another in a long history of frameworks for delivering interactive applications, but technology alone does not an interactive application make. You need to understand the problems, existing solutions and techniques for solving the problem, and the user of the application. Fast is never enough, because the complexity will grow until the app is not fast enough and pain limits what the user can do, underscoring the perception of your app - what the pain prevents me from doing vs. what the lack of pain enables me to do. Scaling is the name of the game - let's talk about bigger problems than you can imagine.

Speakers

Roy Hall has been writing interactive graphic applications for more than 30 years. Trained in civil engineering and architecture, he started writing 3D interactive apps for stadium roof design on E&S PSII's in the late 70's. He later wrote the rendering pipeline for Robert Abel and Associates (Tron - sucking Flynn into the computer and throwing him back out); was the system architect for Wavefront Technologies (Science and Technology Academy Award for that) - and which through many morphs is now the Maya animation software; was an Assistant Professor at Cornell's Program of Computer Graphics; wrote the 'Joey 3D toolkit' extensions for Microsoft MFC in the 90's; worked on the interaction model for Sketchup; and is now the CTO for Thetus Corporation.

Bring out your laptop with Flash Builder 4.5 installed and we will walk through the basics of getting you started with Flex Mobile.

During the discussion we will talk about the differences in architecture between Flex for the Desktop and Flex Mobile. We will talk about Views and ViewNavigators and we will look at how to move data between them. We will also talk about testing your applications locally and on the phone. And lastly we will talk about how to deploy to Android and iOS devices.

Location: PCC Sylvania Library, room 204.

Who doesn’t love to be part of something new? Join us for the very first meeting of the PDX-UX user group! This month, we’ll have three to four demos from local companies showcasing the latest techniques in UX and UI development and design. We will provide free food, drinks, networking and discussions.

Who: Anyone interested in discussing or showcasing cutting-edge user interface and user experience development and design. We’d also love to meet some exciting and motivated potential employees, so feel free to invite your talented designer and developer friends!

When: Thursday, September 29th Food and networking at 5:30 Demos start at 6:00 and will wrap up before 7:00

Where: Thetus Corporation 34 NW 1st Avenue (corner of 1st and Couch) 3rd floor Portland, OR 97209

---Google Group--- We’ll be meeting the 3rd Thursday of every month in the same location--if you’d like to join and/or you're interested in getting updates for future meetings, join our PDX-UX Google Group! http://groups.google.com/group/pdx-ux?hl=en