Recently in Flex Category

Darn it. They're making it too easy. Now they've got these handy dandy learning paths for Flex. And they made one especially for me called "Designer / Web Developer" (it most closely matches my experience). I'm in pain. Now I have to balance Flex in a Week and this! 

Reading about Cocomo, Adobe's Platform as a Service offering (beta only) has resulted in me being intrigued by how I can potentially use Cocomo to my advantage when it comes to my AIR knitting application (currently in limbo from lack of time to learn Flex in a Week). 

So I stupidly bought the husband an iPod for Christmas. The husband doesn't like Linux. You know where this is going, don't you?

Well. Time has flown by and I've had no time to look at Flex Builder in a Week in over a month. Hoping to get back it soon. Good news is I've found out that Adobe Labs has an alpha version of Flex Builder for Linux. This means that I can now install it on my home machine which will free up some options/time for playing with it. I'm not going to get too excited yet: we have to see how that install goes. Previous blogs have mentioned that I love playing with Linux (though I'm getting close to dumping Ubuntu for something else but that's another long-er story involving the VM. More on that later (though I'm expecting a similar problem with the Flex Builder install). 

If only all of Flex Builder could be so simple. Completed exercise 1 in about five minutes (that with two dogs barking at me and one trying to stand on my laptop and with no dual screen: the working conditions I must suffer!). Super easy. Certainly my experience with VB, and Dreamweaver, InDesign, etc., make it easier. Laying out controls is so very ho-hum. Really could have done that without the lessons and the exercise. But hey. I'm committed to the program and I'm suffering through every single last second of it. I'm truly convincing myself that it will pay off. 

I'm hoping to tackle the first exercise tonight. Last night, once I installed the Flash plugin on Firefox on my home machine (Adobe Media Player does not run on Linux) I got caught up on my video lessons and apparently now I'm ready to start working. 

It happens. Especially to someone like me. I was focused on learning Flex in my (said laughingly) spare time, but I received a new laptop a while back...with Vista on it. It constantly crashes, requires workarounds and patches to run my printer, scanner, software, KVM switch, and generally to just exist. A past Linux user (I was sucked back in to the Microsoft vortex in order to mesh more easily with the rest of those who reside in it), I've been keeping an eye on Ubuntu as a quick and dirty way to return to the fold. So my spare time right now is spent setting that up.