Adobe's Serge Jespers is going to show you how to create blazingly fast developer workflows, and make you a rock star in the process.

Using Flash Catalyst, Gumbo (Flex Builder 4) and ColdFusion (Bolt and Centaur), Serge will showcase a suite if products all still in development.

Serge will be giving this session in London, Manchester and Edinburgh. Not to be missed!

Buy your ticket for Scotch now!

Lately I've been doing a lot of work involving improving workflows, and in particular using ColdFusion 8's new PDF features to do just that. 

A nasty example of poor workflow is in trying to place an order for a good or service, or even internally, trying to request a new computer. You typically have to fill out a number of forms (get a quote, purchase order, etc), you then have to get signatures from X number of people depending on what the good/service/requirement is and how much it costs.

Part of the workflow problem is getting hold of Purchase Order numbers, getting the right people to sign the forms (even more difficult if they aren't necessarily in the same building, or even the same country).

Even when you reach the invoice stage, finance departments aren't that keen on paying out (then again, who is) and you typically have to pick up the phone, write an email of take a walk to the department to find out why your goods/service/requirement hasn't materialised.

I'll be talking about how to improve your workflow in Munich at the end of this month at the ColdFusion Camp event.

We at Fuzzy Orange will be rolling a workflow solution into a project we are doing for the Glasgow School of Art's Centre for Advanced Textiles (CAT) department and interestingly, the guys we're working with at CAT are involved in some other workflow concepts.

Andy McDonald, a research student at CAT is working with Dr.WooHoo on this, and Dr.WooHoo is covering a session at MAX North America on using Flex and Air to Automate CS4 Workflows.

Dr.WooHoo will be talking about building cross-platform applications that integrate CS4 (InDesign, Photoshop and Bridge) into your workflow.

Working with Andy we've already been exposed to some of his ideas, which also includes a project code named "KimonoBuilder", which you can see a little sneak peak of at the following online interviews [1][2].

Knowing Andy McDonald personally, in addition to just how awesome Dr.WooHoo is, I can't wait to see what these guys come up with. If you're going to be at MAX NA, I'd urge you to attend this session. "Crazy shit", in a good way of course, springs to mind.

The 28th August will see the first UK Flex Camp take place in London.

This one day free event, sponsored by Adobe, Academy Class Training and Emak Mafu, will feature talks from Andrew Shorten of Adobe, Nik Richardson and Neil Middleton of Monochrome in addition to a few others.

There's also a load of swag to be won, including; Flex Builder 3, CS3 Web, Flex Training, and a ticket to MAX Europe in Milan. Not bad for free entry.

Head over to www.flexcamp.co.uk for full info, and details on how to register.

One of the great things about Scotch on the Rocks, is the ability to call on Adobe Consulting EMEA. The old iteration::two crowd were acquired by Macromedia and therefore Adobe and are based out of Edinburgh, and that gives us an incredible talent to call upon.

And with that, we have 6 sessions from Steven Webster's team.

• Alex Uhlmann - Test Driven Develompent Applied to Flex
• Alistair McLeod - Realtime Collaboration and Adobe Flex
• Paul Williams - Patterns and Best-Practices for Rich Internet Applications: Exploring the Presentation
• Peter Martin - Introduction to Data Management Services with Flex
• Leon Tanner - Modularising your Flex Application
• Borre Wessel - Automated Building and Testing of Rich Internet Applications

Steven won't be given a session this year, however he will be part of the Wednesday morning keynote session, that will also feature Ben Forta, Adam Lehman and Andrew Shorten.

We will be releasing a new version of the agenda soon to take into account these new sessions.

Flex Builder for Linux Alpha 3 is now out.

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/flexbuilder_linux/

I just read, via Matt Woodward - who is talking at Scotch on the Rocks 2008 by the way - that Adobe are offering Flex Builder 2 at no cost to Students and Faculty at Educational institutions world wide.

Great news in my opinion.

Following on from this, I've often pondered how Adobe could inject ColdFusion into education. Here in the UK, there are a great deal of Universities and Colleges that are using ColdFusion in one way or another; hosting their website, offering hosted services to students, or even in the rare case actually teaching it.

I believe the University of Abertay, Dundee actually teach ColdFusion as part of their syllabus.

All this is great, but what more could be done to help ColdFusion penetrate the educational sector, and more importantly see graduating students come out looking for ColdFusion jobs rather than just whatever is currently being taught (which in my case was Java or Eiffel).

• Provide students on any Computer Science related course with a free copy of ColdFusion Standard?
• Offer each Computer Science (or related) department at every University or College a free copy of ColdFusion Enterprise?

What else could be done?

Here's the link for tonight's presentation by Scott Stroz on Sorting and Filtering Data in Flex 2.

http://adobechats.adobe.acrobat.com/p13492605/

Now that we've taken a break after Scotch on the Rocks (and look out for info on Scotch 2008 soon), we've lined up our July meeting for the Scottish CFUG

I'm delighted to say we've got Alagad's Scott Stroz presenting on Sorting and Filtering Data in Flex 2 on Tuesday 24th July.

The meeting will be via Connect, and you can find all details on the User Group web site.

The meeting is open to everyone, and it will of course be recorded.

Key skills:

Fluency in French or German (as well as English) C++, C#, or Java / Experience with server o/s e.g.: Windows Server, Solaris, AIX, and Linux Experience with web application development / JavaScript, HTML, and XML / RDBMS systems / User interface development skills a plus / Macromedia Flash, ActionScript, and Flex.

• Responsible for providing a premier-level, relationship-based support offering to Macromedia server product customers.
• Provide product support and manage customer accounts by phone and e-mail.
• Conduct thorough analysis of customer problems and answer customer questions.
• Provide presales support to qualified strategic accounts as required by Sales.
• Document reproducible product defects in the product bug database.
• Provide training and leadership to the support team.
• Proactively manage customer accounts, accurately document cases, and serve as central customer contact.
• Document solutions and techniques, making information available through technical notes located on the Product Support website.
• Escalate customer issues to the server escalation team, remaining engaged with issues through the resolution.
• Continuously expand technical knowledge through formal training, third-party product research, and participation in information sessions.

Knowledge & Skills

• To perform the job successfully, an individual should demonstrate the following competencies: Communication: Has excellent verbal communication and writing skills. Customer Service: Responds promptly to customer needs and meets commitments. Problem Solving: Has ability to define a problem and methodically work to find resolution using all available resources. Organization and time management: Successfully manages workload and prioritizes incoming issues.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent
• Minimum three years experience in product support, technical consulting, software development, or related position
• Degree in Computer Science (or related field) and/or advanced degree is desirable
• Strong background in system administration and troubleshooting
• Competency programming in an object oriented programming language, i.e. C++, C#, or Java
• Experience with server operating systems, i.e. Windows Server, Solaris, AIX, and Linux
• Experience with web application development
• Understanding of JavaScript, HTML, and XML
• Experience with RDBMS systems
• User interface development skills a plus
• Macromedia Flash, ActionScript, and Flex experience
• Experience with CRM tools a plus
• Ability to work effectively directly with customers in a fast-paced, interrupt-driven environment

If you are interested, let me know and I'll put you in direct contact with the right person.

On the 22nd of November, Macromedia's Mike Chambers and Danny Dura will be presenting on Flex 2 and Flash Player 8.5 here in lovely sunny Edinburgh. This is a joint meeting of the Scottish ColdFusion, JRun and RIA groups. Mike will give an overview of where the Flash Platform is today, and take a look at what Macromedia is doing to help drive its growth in the future. He will then discuss and show the recently released Alpha versions of Flex Builder 2, Flex 2, and ActionScript 3, Flash Player 8.5, and how they make it easy for any developer to create content and applications for the Flash Platform. Danny's talk has still to be confirmed (he loses a beer for every day it's late) but this will be a presentation you definately don't want to miss. We're hosting things at the University of Edinburgh, we'll be getting started at 6.30pm Registration is by email to myself manager@scottishcfug.com and I need your name, company and email address. Up to date info including directions can be found on www.scottishcfug.com We'll also have a copy of Studio 8 to raffle as well. Hope you can join us.