I’m going to keep this short and sweet as the title pretty much sums it all up. Today I start a new chapter in my career as a Flash Platform Evangelist at Adobe. I’m super stoked about this and I’m both excited and honoured to be working with such a high calibre of individuals both on a professional and personal level.

I’ll be doing a follow up post about my first week as an Evangelist (well in a week obviously :p), but I wanted to celebrate this great opportunity by letting all my friends and peers know. I’d have done this announcement sooner but I’ve been sworn to secrecy for a rather long time – feels good to be able to shout it from the rafters at last :D

Go Team! :D

One thing that has always bugged me is that it isn’t particularly clear how you reconnect Flex Builder (the plugin) to a new fresh installation of eclipse, when eclipse “goes bad”.

Sure, you can uninstall Flex Builder and reinstall it after you’ve updated eclipse. To my mind that is just too time consuming; so with that in mind I set about having a hunt within my eclipse folder to try and work out what I need to add / change in a fresh eclipse install to re-link the Flex Builder plugin.

If you want to see how I got on read on…

Update

Thanks to Sean Corfield there is a quicker way to update a new installation. All you need to do is add the Flex Builder Plugin update site that is located in your Flex Builder plugin installation folder. For example mine is /Applications/Adobe Flex Builder 3 Plug-in/com.adobe.flexbuilder.update.site.

I had seen this folder in the directory, but assumed it was used to update the plugin not the eclipse installation that was utilizing it. Doh! :p Thanks again Sean :)

Feel free to read on though if you want to know how to do it manually :p

The first thing you’ll have probably noticed is that when you install Flex Builder as a plugin of eclipse, is that a new .jar file (startup_fb.jar) is placed within the root of your eclipse folder. Personally I don’t really have much idea what this .jar does, but given the fact it’s called startup_fb it’s pretty likely it’s used to start the Flex Builder initialization first time or every time eclipse is run.

The next addition that Flex Builder makes to your eclipse install is that it places a file that links to the Flex Builder plugin installation folder in a folder called links. The file itself is called com.adobe.flexbuilder.feature.core.osx.link on OS X and com.adobe.flexbuilder.feature.core.link on Windows, but it is just a plain text file – as it happens mine points to /Applications/Adobe Flex Builder 3 Plug-in (as I’m on a Mac).

Now here is where the digging comes in. If you just copy these two files in to your fresh eclipse install nothing will happen. Not a sausage, nada. So first call of action was to look through the various folders in the eclipse installation to see if there are any com.adobe.xxx packages within them. Surprisingly there aren’t.

So after a bit of logical thinking I started to hunt through the main configuration file for eclipse. It was here that I finally got a break-thru. It appears that there is a folder called org.eclipse.equinox.simpleconfigurator that contains a file called bundle.info and it is in here that I finally found what I was looking for. As you can see from the image below, this file holds the bundle references to amongst other things all of the Flex Builder files.

With this final pieces of the jigsaw in place I was finally able to reconnect Flex Builder to a fresh installation of eclipse, and if you want to be able to do it as well here are the actual steps.

• Install a fresh copy of eclipse, but don’t delete the old version yet. (I called mine eclipse-new, you can rename it at the end)
• Copy start_fb.jar to the root of your new eclipse installation
• Copy the Flex Builder link file com.adobe.flexbuilder.feature.core.osx.link if you’re on OS X, or com.adobe.flexbuilder.feature.core.link if you’re on Windows, to the ‘links’ folder in the root of your new eclipse installation (If you are using Ganymede – 3.4 or greater you’ll need to create this folder)
• Open up the bundles.info file located in you old eclipse installation/configuration/org.eclipse.equinox.simpleconfigurator in a text editor
• Copy all of the Flex Builder related entries – use the file reference as a guide as not all of the packages have Flex in the name
• Now open up the same file, but in your new installation and paste those entries at the top and save it
• Start up your new clean eclipse install and bask in your 1337 s1<i||z :p
• If all went to plan you can now close eclipse, delete the old version and rename the new one – job done.

That’s pretty much it. If this seems a bit overly complex, don’t worry – I’m putting the final touches to a screencast that you can use to walk you through this process should you ever need to do it :)

A very cool start to a Friday. My interview with ActionScriptHero.org is live. I’ve include some of the questions below, but if you want to read the whole entry you can here. Even if you’re not interested in reading any more of my interview there are a lot of great individuals who have been interviewed so far so go and check them out too :D

I’d also like to thank Pablo for taking the time to interview me

Here’s a snippet…

- How would you introduce yourself and your job to a non-technical person?
“Hi I’m Mike Jones and I am lucky enough to get paid for my hobby.” – In my experience most non-technical people who ask what you do, (think meeting friends of friends for an evening in the pub), as soon as they hear you do something with computers it immediately marks you as technical support for the rest of the evening :p. I have been known to say that my job is an office clerk to avoid such awkward moments…

- How did you get started with Flash?
I first got in to Flash in 1996, when it was still called Splash Animator by Futurewave. I was doing a degree in Fine Art at Goldsmiths University in South East London and my visual studios manager called me in to his office to show me the MSN homepage. What I saw changed my view of the internet profoundly; looking back it doesn’t seem particularly ground breaking, but they had a small navigation system on the left hand side of the homepage and actually opened and closed in a smooth fluid manner, providing access to sub sections of the site. This was the first time I had ever seen Splash Animator and over the course of many days I downloaded and transferred it on a dozen or so 1.44MB floppy disks back to my meagre P90 at home. Twelve years on and I’m still enamoured with the technology.

For those of you who want to learn Flex, but could do with a few pointers to get you started, this will be of interest. Academy Class and Adobe are offering FREE 1 day Flex jump start courses in Manchester and London. You can find out more on Academy Class’s site or at Bring Your Own Laptop.

If you wish to attend (which means you’ll need to be in or able to get to the UK), then head over to Academy Class’s site and register as places are limited. The blurb on the BYOL site reads as follows:

BRING YOUR OWN LAPTOP:
Adobe Flex Jumpstart

A FREE 1 day “hands on” training session for beginners, brought to you by Adobe and Academy Class.

This day long, hands on training will help you to get familiar with the basics of Adobe Flex 3.

Location

Central London / Manchester

Cost

Free!

Class Size

20 Maximum

Agenda

See site for agenda

Dates & Times

See below

Manchester Dates 2009

• 9:30am – 4:30pm, Tuesday January 27th 2009
• 9:30am – 4:30pm, Tuesday February 17th 2009
• 9:30am – 4:30pm, Friday March 20th 2009

London Dates 2009 – back by popular demand

• 9:30am – 4:30pm, Monday January 26th 2009
• 9:30am – 4:30pm, Friday February 13th 2009
• 9:30am – 4:30pm, Monday March 2nd 2009

Course Prerequisites
General web development skills, MUST “bring your own laptop” pre-installed with Flex Builder 3. Download the trial for free from here.

So what are you waiting for? Head over to the Academy Class site and sign up.

SapphireSteel announced yesterday that they will be releasing a Flex / AIR Visual Studio plugin. This comes close behind Ensembles announcement of Tofino, another Flex plugin for Visual Studio. Looks like all you .NET developers will finally be able to see what all the Flex fuss is about :D.

What makes SapphireSteel’s plugin more interesting is the fact that it has a design view as well so those .NET developers who wish to take advantage of the drag and drop create and build approach can. You can read more here

Well I’ve finally got around to updating my blog. It’s not completely finished but it is looking a lot more “colorful” than the old grey version.

I still have a load of things to add to it (and some bits are still missing content), but I could spend a lifetime and a day tweaking and never post it up. Therefore I bit the bullet and uploaded the initial release. If you are wondering, this is based on the excellent “The Morning After” theme by Arun Kale, although I have done some updates to make it more to my liking.

Well it’s been an age since I last had time to post anything. This is partly due to the fact that at the beginning of September I got married and duly headed off n our honeymoon for three weeks. To say I’m happy is an understatement and Em and I have been together for twelve years so something must be right :D

No sooner had we arrived back in the UK then I was off to speak at Flash on the Beach – this conference just gets bigger and better each year. Details of my session and the slides, example files etc will be covered in a separate post so I’ll leave it there for the time being. The weather was great and it was enjoyable to meet up with so many old friends and make some new ones too.

After FotB I headed back and did the usual “empty your entire suitcase in the washer” trick and set about trying to reduce nearly a months worth of emails (it’s a lot :p). I had time to enjoy a restful weekend with my ‘new’ wife before heading off to The Future of Web Apps at the Excel Centre in London to do some product demonstration for Adobe on their stand. Unfortunately the hotel that had been booked was less that acceptable, their service was awful and they weren’t particulalry helpful even though the problems were their fault. It got resolved in the end but I certainly won’t be spending and time or money in any of their establishments ever again. There was one silver lining to take away the hotel issues, while I was at FoWA I received an email inviting me to become an Adobe Community Expert. So I can now proudly display the ACE badge on my blog – Sweet.

With less than 6 hours to go the Flash on the Beach auction is hotting up. I’ve just had a look and you could get a full 3 day conference pass for as little as £85 (a saving of over £400). If I wasn’t already attending I’d be tempted to bid on a couple of these.

So if your company is stalling on letting your go because of “budget” now is the time to hit them, because these tickets will be gone shortly. To the lucky five winners of the auction – see you in Brighton in September!

Check out the auctions before it’s too late:

• Item number: 300243029121
• Item number: 300243031273
• Item number: 300243031353
• Item number: 300243031632
• Item number: 300243031684

For those who aren’t coming to Flash on the Beach 08 shame on you! I’m only joking, I’m sure you’ll all be there :P. For the FotB faithful you will already know that there is a new speaker / attendee hotel this year – myHotel Brighton (I know not a particularly catchy name). However I was out having lunch yesterday with John Davey (founder and organiser of Flash on the Beach). John and I have been good friends for a very long time now but we don’t get the time to meet up that often due to various commitments. So most of our get togethers are last minute – hence yesterdays luncheon.

While we looked for a place to eat the bulk of our conversation was about photography as both John and I are pretty keen photographers, so we discussed tripods, lenses, straps; even filters (cue gratuitous camera pr0n). That said once we actually decided on where to eat and were seated, the conversation turned to FotB ’08 and top of my list was the new hotel. Now I suspect those who have seen the pictures can’t help but notice the slightly stark, some may say, sterile exterior. John put me straight on this. the photos really don’t do it justice and it is a fantastic building and the interior is “very cool” to coin a phrase.

On top of this cool surrounding there is wifi available throughout the hotel (that actually works) and the rumour is that the bar is 24 hour for guests (I’ve yet to find hard evidence though). In the rooms there is an integrated sound system so you can just plug your iPod / iPhone in and it will be piped through out the room. Flat panel TV’s to aid relaxation (read in to that what you will :p) and a mini bar!!! Plus the restaurant is run by Aldo Zilli for you fish lovers out there. The best bit is that it’s literally in spitting distance of the Dome theatre

Now on to the secrets – well there isn’t going to much to tell as they’re secret. However let me just say that it is VERY cool and I’m personally very exited about what John has up his sleeves. My secret, well that’s not as big, but I’m pretty stoked by it and hopefully you will be too when I can talk about it.

To keep up with all the Flash on the Beach news either sign up to the FotB mailing list or if you use Twitter (who doesn’t these days) add FotB to your list

Roll on September!!!!

Having been a Mac convert for over two years now I’m still amazed at the amount of free apps that are truly useful on OS X compared to Windows (no this isn’t a Windows bashing post). grabUp is another of those online / offline utilities that appears to be truly handy for dealing with screen grabs that you want to send to other people

The idea is that you install this little System Prefs application and using the hot key combo COMMAND + SHIFT + 4 you can grab a selected area and it is automatically uploaded to the grabUp website and a unique (and fairly ‘secure’ – due to its convoluted nature) URL is created that you then paste in to your mail, web page or IM so that anyone you want to see it can.

It is very useful, but I have a few reservations (maybe these niggles will be ironed out in future builds). Firstly it overrides the default functionality that OS X already has for grabbing a selected region of the screen. So if I didn’t want to send it to the grabUp site and just save it to my desktop I have to disable the app in my System Prefs. Not that useful in those cases. I could easily just paste the link and download it from the site. That to me sounds a little long winded and of course won’t work at all if I am offline. This needs changing – it either needs an override or moving to another key combination – Perhaps COMMAND + SHIFT + 5 (I’m not sure if this already does something on OS X though).

[UPDATE] I’ve just noticed that is doesn’t replace the selection functionality built in to OS X. It just augments it. So it still places your screen grab in the folder you have specified (the default ids your desktop, mine is in a folder called Screen Grabs – hence why I missed this). So one of my initial grumbles is now null and void :D [UPDATE]

Secondly, while it’s great the links are unique and therefore somewhat secure (in the loosest terms). There is no way for me to find a grab I have uploaded again unless I manually save the URL myself. I’d rather have the option of having an account so I can manage the files I have uploaded, set permissions, delete etc

Overall a great idea and probably very useful for the vast majority of casual users. Personally I’d like a few more “advanced” features. Regardless, if you haven’t tried it you can get a copy at grabUp.com