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Do you want to stay updated on the latest news around Flash video? Or maybe want to get your questions answered by one of the leading industry experts? Then look no further than Lisa Larson-Kelley's new web video newsletter which Lisa is planning on sending out every week - or near enough.

In it she will share tips and tricks about FMS and Flash video and will also give readers sneak peaks into some chapters of her upcoming Flash Video Guestbook - so make sure to sign up to the newsletter and send her your video questions.

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Posted on January 4, 2011 at 1:06 PM. 2657 views. 0 comments. Print

A quick heads up on a new book covering Flex 4 which was authored by fellow Adobe community members (most are Adobe Community Professionals as well) Tariq Ahmed, Dan Orlando, John C. Bland II, and Joel Hooks.
The book is called Flex 4 in Action and constitutes an updated and revised edition to the previous Flex 3 book.

This book has received extremely positive reviews and whilst I have not yet read it myself I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone starting out with Flex or wishing to broaden their existing Flex 3 skills.

Tariq, the lead author, has this to say:
"The book assumes you know nothing of Flex. So it's optimal for software professionals looking to expand their skill set, an architect/technical manager conducting a deep evaluation of Flex in order to assess if Flex is a good fit, and teams looking to bring Flex into their technology stack. And if you're already working with Flex, and looking to go into Flex 4, the book covers all the concepts and features that were added to Flex 4.

The focus of the book is to provide a lot of coverage on the stuff you'd use all the time, vs. covering every possible topic under the sun and having to go shallow on the details. And even then, we came in at over 600 pages (and that's after we chopped stuff out).

For owners of Flex 3 In Action, we didn't want to just merely copy the previous book, but provide a lot of new content. That includes things new to Flex 4, but subjects such as MVC architecture that we didn't have space for in the prior book.

For example we took out the chapter on working with XML and made it available for free:

http://www.manning.com/ahmed2/ (look for bonus chapter 26)"

Readers describe it as 'Your one stop shop for everything you need to know about Flex', 'a Solid Start With Flex', 'Good reference guide' and 'Great book'.

Go and grab yourself a copy and hit the ground running.

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Posted on November 30, 2010 at 11:53 AM. 2902 views. 2 comments. Print

You may have heard by now that Adobe have relaunched Adobe.TV. Adobe have listened to feedback and greatly improved the site through a better navigation system, more robust search and more interactive capabilities. Incidentally the video player used on Adobe.TV is one of the first public video players which utilises the Open Source Media Framework (OSMF).

The site now offers new additions such as a resizable pop-out window that allows users to view content while simultaneously working within their Adobe applications. A new homepage provides quick and easy access to relevant episodes, with the ability to sort by most popular, most viewed, highest rated and recently added. And users can download the Adobe Media Player to view and save content offline, and receive new programming as soon as it is released.

I've used the site to watch a few episodes by the Flex Team and I must admit that the new site is a definitive improvement. While there are some minor glitches still to be ironed out I think this is a destination to keep an eye on. And the quality of the content is superb - which is of course the most important part.

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Posted on September 10, 2009 at 12:11 PM. 2995 views. 0 comments. Print

Here's an interesting article from O'Reilly on the state of the computer book market according to their publishing and sales figures.
From a Flash Platform developer's point of view it is exciting to see that ActionScript has moved into the top tier of programming languages, selling enough titles to make it part of the 'Large' languages. The growth of the ActionScript bracket is also very good, in fact it is one of the three fastest growing languages in that category next to C# and PHP.

Way to go Flash!

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Posted on February 27, 2009 at 11:41 AM. 2602 views. 1 comment. Print

Bill Sanders has done it again - and yes I know I am slow to blog it. Nevertheless his new book in PDF format, published by O'Reilly and titled Learning Flash Media Server 3, comes highly recommended.

On over 250 pages it covers a lot of ground to get you started with FMS3 and also quite deeply into more advanced topics. From installation to setup over SharedObject and streaming video and audio to server side programming, every reader will get something out of this book.

You can get more info on it at O'Reilly and also order it there for a mere USD $19.99.

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Posted on May 19, 2008 at 3:09 PM. 4275 views. 8 comments. Print

Streamingmedia.com have posted a video tutorial covering Wowza Media Server. In it Richard Lanham covers installation, video on demand, live restreaming, extending Wowza, monitoring, and customer examples.

Check it out.

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Posted on May 1, 2008 at 11:55 PM. 7595 views. 0 comments. Print

My friend and co-author Jan Ozer has just released a huge, 340 page PDF document entitled 'Critical Skills for Streaming Producers'. It is accompanied by a series of video tutorials and materials which will help you hit the ground running when it comes to on location video shooting, lighting, choosing a codec, encoding and much much more.
You can find more info on this page which also contains a link to purchase. I'll definitely grab myself a copy.

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Posted on February 12, 2008 at 11:02 AM. 3788 views. 0 comments. Print

Fellow developer Bill Sanders has just announced the release of his latest book 'Learning Flash Media Server 2', published by O'Reilly.
This book aims to give its readers a thorough introduction into the features and capabilities of Flash Media Server 2 by providing a step by step guide for building a variety of applications such as two way communications, streaming video and a text chat application.
In my opinion this book looks like the ideal companion if you want to hit the ground running with Flash Media Server and are looking for less of a reference than a how-to guide to actual applications - check out the table of contents here. I'll definitely be adding this book to my collection.

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Posted on July 2, 2007 at 11:23 AM. 6295 views. 9 comments. Print

I've just been given the go ahead to post a sample chapter of my book 'Hands-On Guide To Flash Video' (which I co-authored together with Jan Ozer). So without further delay here is chapter 4 (written by Jan) which covers lighting for shooting web video.

Chapter 4 (7MB PDF).

I you feel so inclined you can order the book from Amazon.

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Posted on June 22, 2007 at 10:07 PM. 4854 views. 0 comments. Print

Here's a nice demo by Karl Soule of Adobe covering Adobe OnLocation and Ultra. Both tools have been added to Adobe's offering after the aquisition of Serious Magic.

Ultra is a tool for working with blue- or greenscreen video in a very straight forward way and it allows you to easily change backgrounds in a video and it even gives you a real time preview during the shot, amongst other things. Very cool.

OnLocation (previously called DV Rack) on the other hand provides you with an easy way of recording video directly to disk, for example on your laptop. No need for tapes anymore. I saw a demo of this at Adobe Live in London and the tool is really powerful once you take a few minutes to explore the many options its interface provides.
You can watch the recording by Karl Soule here.

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Posted on June 7, 2007 at 4:43 PM. 7439 views. 1 comment. Print