Leaving Meetup for Blue Skies at Ning

For a little over a year I started a small but successful Meetup group for Fort Wayne's visual creative members called I-69 Visual Design. Our goals were simple, but we were looking for a new and fun way to interact with our members.

Enter: Ning. Ning.com is growing in popularity by something Fast Company calls viral looping, because of it's popularity, when one person joins, at least two new social media groups will be created. Ning is great because for a small group organizer like me, it is free (albeit you'll find advertising on the left column). Some of the features include event promotion, discussions and commenting, but also members can post their own content and customize their own pages.

Meetup is one of the best event planning websites of its kind and I credit them for that. But my members wanted more and I needed something my new group, Fort Wayne Visual Designers would enjoy using.

The Lure of Flex

Adobe makes Flex seem great and indeed it offers many advantages to other languages. One of the draws is that once created, an application can run on any platform including Mac, PC and Unix. And yet while run from the SWF player, it is not beholding to the differences in browsers. Many of my friends in ColdFusion and web development sing its praises. They say how easy it is to learn. And indeed, Adobe makes it easy for those of us who work in the field of education and have a staff, faculty or student ID, Flex Builder is free. http://flexregistration.com/

If you are not one of the above, the download is available and free for the first 60 days of use. After that, to use the application it's $699 for the pro version and $249 for the standard edition.

As a member of O'Reilly Safari Books, it is easy to gain access to the new books coming out on Flex. I'm looking at a new book right now--it's not been printed yet, but it is published online in a feature they call the Rough Cuts, where you can read full texts and comment on books. This book is Learning Flex 3, by Alaric Cole. He says that right now is the best time for new developers to learn Flex.

Want to see it in action? Check out the live showcase. You'll find examples here http://flex.org/showcase/

Links for learning more and access to books available from Adobe and O'Reilly Safari Books.

Prototype and script.aculo.us

Learned of the power of prototype and script.aculo.us from GeekDinner. After spending the day reading web forums and blogs, purchased the book from The Pragmatic Programmer. I'm a visual designer who has spent the past year learning ActionScript 3.0. I think this framework will lend itself to my work to increase functionality and usability. Programming is a useful way to extend my abilities as an interactive designer. More to come as I explore this language.

The Safari Books Online Advantage

Web technology continues to change and improve. It's hard to keep up without buying books or having someone on hand to show you the ropes. I joined Safari Books Online because it has proven to me it is a valuable tool when maintaining or learning new skills. Below are a few thoughts.

You might be able to buy used versions of these books from other sources for nearly the same cost of the monthly fees. However, if you need to learn software quickly, Safari Books Online offers many advantages over buying and owning books.

One clear benefit is in the search feature. Imagine searching among all the books in the O'Reilly library as well as a slew of related publishers, to locate books containing info on your query.

Because O'Reilly books are written while software is being developed, they sometimes contain errors throughout. Printed books might include a web address for few corrections. Safari Books Online calls the pages errata and are available at the top of every page. These often do not include all the errors. Readers catch and notify the publishers of errors. These are published to an errata, unapproved by the authors, yet extremely valuable to the reader.

A great feature you can't deny is the ability to copy and paste scripts. As an ActionScript programmer I'm pleased to not retype code I want to test only to spend an hour debugging a typo. While it is true you might learn by typing, it is also true that if you are new to script programming, it is easy to overlook the syntax of a script.