David Hassoun

360|Flex
and EventVue - http://tinyurl.com/5zq72q

360|Flex has teamed up with
EventVue to allow their attendees to create a community before the show and
continue the community after it. They’re
very excited about this deal and expect to see great things happen.

·
360|Flex Send a Team or an Army - http://tinyurl.com/5vm594

360|Flex is already a great deal at
the full price of $480. However, what’s
even more amazing is the $375 per ticket price when you register as a 4 person
team. It’s no wonder that companies are
taking advantage of this deal and are sending whole teams. If you haven’t
registered yet, you’d better hurry. When
teams buy in bulk, the number of available tickets dwindles fast.

·
360|Flex on the Switchboard, we’ll connect you! - http://tinyurl.com/6l7eyr and 360Flex
Speakers make their own standards - http://tinyurl.com/6r383d

360|Flex speakers (like myself) are
known for creating new products, frameworks and even standards. Switchboard is a way for you to code your own
AIR apps to talk directly to CS3 applications.
While Sam Rivello has gone off and created his own coding standards. We
360|Flex speakers are never complacent.

·
Sunday Training Day has 4 sessions now. David Gassner, sponsored by
Lynda.com, is doing the Flex 101 session - http://tinyurl.com/5kncfd
We’ve also just announced that Ribbit will be hosting their Summer Spawn during
the Sunday training as well - http://tinyurl.com/5rxyna

There are two more Sunday training
sessions soon to be announced. The guys
at 360|Flex are just finalizing the details and will post them soon on the
conference blog (http://tinyurl.com/62445d) All Sunday training sessions are free for
registered attendees only. Some shows
charge $500 just for preconference training.
The guys at 360|Flex only charge $480 for the show and throw in the
training for free! All you need to do is register for the conference and then
send an to email info@360flex.com to let
them know which Sunday training you will be attending.

·
In case you haven’t noticed yet, 360|Flex has started their Speaker
Series where they interview speakers who they happen to magically bump
into. The posts are a hoot thanks to
John’s incredible wit. The series
consist of the following interviews so far:

o Chris Keeler -
http://tinyurl.com/5vv2mp

o H.Paul
Robertson - http://tinyurl.com/65kx94

o Jeffry Houser
- http://tinyurl.com/668hup

o Mary McDonald
- http://tinyurl.com/6ovt6s

If you haven’t read them yet, do so
and find out some valuable information from these community speakers.

So going to be speaking at the next 360 Flex conference! Woo Hoo!
I have to say that the 360 conferences just keep getting better and better. The speakers are top notch the attendees are awesome and the guys who run it….well they are Tom and John and badass too! hehe

Hands down probably the best Flex based conference out there.

The basics of my session are below:

Advanced Video Streaming and Management Techniques with Flex and the Flash Media Server

This session will be a deeper dive look into the capabilities and how-to for
some of the more advanced audio/video streaming capabilities available with the
Flash Media Server and how to integrate them with Flex. We will explore
concepts such as dynamic bandwidth detection and monitoring, multi-bitrate
video streaming, multi-point publishing, some of the other exciting new
features of FMS3 and tips and tricks for developing and debugging streaming
media applications. [I may be able to show some other stuff that I can't talk a
lot about now that should be maybe be available around that time – can't
guarantee anything – as it gets closer can let you know]

To register - as you should - go here!

If you’re curious about Degrafa, we’ll be hosting Juan Sanchez’s presentation at RMAUG live
in Adobe Connect! Space is roughly limited but there should be enough to go around for you virtual attendees.

The presentation will be starting at approximately 7pm Mountain Time, tomorrow May 8th.

Here’s a link to where the meeting will be hosted:

http://realeyes.acrobat.com/rmaug/

Here is an important tech note about how the new Flash Player 9.0.124.0 update has adversely affected H.264 MPEG video streaming from the Flash Media Server 3.0. The general jist is it wont work now with the secuirty updated player, but if you upgrade to Flash Media Server 3.01 then you are all good.

Tech Note about issue:
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb403400&sliceId=1

FMS Support Center to download 3.01
http://www.adobe.com/support/flashmediaserver/downloads_updaters.html

So looks like I will be writing a few chapters arounf Flash Video, advanced integration (Flex > Flash, Flash < Flex) techniques and Flash Media Server for the new Professional Flex 3 book. Amazon has the details all botched but can get a little info here: http://www.joeflash.ca/blog/2008/03/the-professional-flex-3-book.html

The article I we wrote for the Flash Video Dynamic Stream Switching is now live on Adobe Devnet!!

Check it out!

Devnet Article

Felt like throwing out props to some of my fav people in the industry. Can be people I just really respect, have had the pleasure to work with, or just people who’s community involvement has been noteworthy and greatly appreciated. (In no specific order)

————————–

ADOBE- All the great people there that make all what we do possible.
Some of the many to note:

Ken Toley - Badass guy, been around a bunch of the teams there around Flash technology
Kevin Hoyt - One of the few local Coloradans. Awesome man for the community - great presenter and great info on his blog. Also a great photographer.
Kevin Towes - Of Flash Media (Communication) Server fame and from the land of silly canadians, a good guy and leader in the FMS community for years.
Mike Downey - Always a great place for whats hot with the Flash tech
Ted Patrick - The man! One of the great community evangelists and badasses as far back as ifbin and now on the path to rule the world from Adobe
Matt Chotin - Great guy, always on top of his game and really good for the technology and the community as a whole.
Deepa Subramaniam - Amazing lady on the Flex team. Some of my favorite features can be attributed largely to her, and an awesome speaker to boot.
Renaun Erickson - An all around awesome guy. Been great contributor in many ways to the community and working on some super slick stuff at Adobe. Great presenter and super smart. Always excited to hear whats new from him.

————————–

OPEN SOURCERS & DEVELOPERS
Doug McCune - Hehe come on if you dont know Doug then your missing out. Foul mouther and punkd out, but a major contributor and booming voice for the community. Hail Doug!
Adam Flater - Another local Colorado badass. One of the evil slick masterminds behind Artemis - helping AIR be what it should be. Great presenter as well!
Juan Sanchez - Amazing UI and skinning contributions were only the beginning. DEGRAFA is one of my fav open source projects and hes one of the key players. Great presenter as well.
Andy McIntosh - Amazing developer, great speaker and sied to read his new book I believe writing with Juan.
Tony Hillerson - The man when it come to rails and all things Flex. All around good guy, and badass developer. Havnt had the pleasure to hear him present but heard great things.
Digital Primates - All these guys are awesome. Labriola, Nimer, Tapper, etc. are all some of the people I respect most in this industry. Phenomenal developers, great community leaders, top notch presenters, and some great guys to drink with. The merging of the companies which now makes up the primates is a force to reckon with.

There are many many more, but this is what came to mind on a whim. Thanks to all above for the great work you guys churn out. It helps the whole industry.

Here is a sneak peak at an upcoming article we wrote for Adobe on Dynamic Stream Switching for the Flash Media Server 3 family of servers. Check it out here and on the Adobe Devnet soon!

Table of contents:

• Introduction
• Understanding the multi-bit rate solution
• Step 1: Encoding for multi-bit rate
• Step 2: Bandwidth detection
• Step 3: Bit rate selection
• Step 4: Stream switching
• Step 5: Bandwidth monitoring / dynamic stream switching

This article provides an overview of the concepts involved in dynamic stream switching of Flash video using Flash Media Server 3 (using both Flash Media Streaming Server 3 and Flash Media Interactive Server 3). This technique employs the power of Flash Media Server 3 to enhance the experience for users, taking into account the varying network conditions they may encounter while viewing streaming content. I’ve included techniques and recommendations for bandwidth detection and the process to follow when preparing and encoding your video files for multi-bit rate delivery. The provided code examples demonstrate how to implement an effective mechanism for dynamically managing stream switching based upon the end user’s bandwidth over time.

( Article in PDF format )
( Hands-on Files - 76MB )

UPDATE: Here is the live article -

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashmediaserver/articles/dynamic_stream_switching.html

The WebManiacs 2008 conference schedule has been finalized
and registration is open. Early bird pricing ends Jan 31. Consisting of a
two-day ColdFusion conference (”CFManiacs”) coupled with a three-day
Flex conference (FlexManiacs), hosting over 70 speakers and 130 distinct topics
(some of which are hands-on), WebManiacs promises to have the most
comprehensive coverage of Flex, AIR, and ColdFusion at the lowest price.
Seating is limited, so folks should register early in order to get into the
more popular sessions.