You can register here, right now for a limited seat, so don’t miss the chance:

Hang on you don’t live in Switzerland but in another European Country? Don’t worry Ryan Stewart and Mihai Corlan will be travelling around Europe to show the latest greatest features of Flex for Mobile Devices. Mihai posted a tour list on his blog: http://corlan.org/2011/10/27/flex-mobile-european-tour-2011/

Don’t miss the great opportunity!

Two weeks ago me and my fellow co-workers have started our company blog which can be reached at
http://blog.publicis-modem.ch every open source initiative, project or library that we create will be published there.
I might do a cross link to a blog post or even write a little more about it, but I think you should keep an eye over there aswell, we already released two opensource projects (wallaGo and AS3Square) and there is more to come soon, so stay tuned for some fresh content and don’t forget to bookmark a new fresh blog.

… it feels very bad, why? Just to mention a few reasons, the people, the scenery, the people, the snowboarding, have I already mentioned the people?
yep, besides Flash At The Lake 09 there was no conference that I loved so much, It was such an awesome time talking with some great cool people, it was a laid back conference with
lots of time for networking, snowboarding, and simply having fun. Let me recap for your what happened and how I experienced it.

Day T-1:
Yep, I’ve driven up to Stechelberg a day before the Conference officially started together with Mihai Corlan which I had the opportunity of picking up at the Airport and having
a very relaxed drive to the mountains with some very good talks not only geeky but very inspiring and fun. After arriving at the Location, people started to walk in ( there were already a few though ),
and we had a great time getting to know each other and to learn about what others do, very constructive and inspiring, if it wasn’t for the late night obligatory speaker snowball fight at 3am

Day 1:
First day on the slopes, first day of the conference, after a very relaxing snowboarding day with @riccastelhano, @masdennis, @starnut, @johanlopes and @agens as you can see here, the conference started late but very interesting with the opening speech of @mcorlan on Building Mobile Apps with Adobe AIR, followed by @agens speech on Making Flash Games where he showed an awesome ski jump game which attracted a sick amount of gamers, Peter also presented FunGrid an opensource flash game API, almost at midnight @mcorlan had the last speech of the day/night where he showed some great AIR/P2P examples as well some tips & tricks on his session Optimizing your Flash/AIR Application. Same as last night, it didn’t end very early and in this place I would like to thank Otto & and his service for keeping us awake with some booze and especially to stay awake with us at such late time.

Day 2:
Apart from the usual awesome weather in Stechelberg, just have a look at this awful pics, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and if you don’t have enough of it, here the complete Album. Everybody was pretty much on time to attend @masdennis awesome presentation on Messing with Actionscript and the Kinect then as the Dinner arrived, @fcolaco had a surprise prepared for us especially for visitors outside of Switzerland, the local yodeler group made a show for us and you shouldn’t miss this one, The Yodelers at gotoAndSki(); after their show, the conference continued its normal path and @starnut was up on the stage for his talk titled Hot Wireless Data Fudge where he speaks about all kinds of wireless communication while developing for AIR on mobile and on the desktop, again quite late it was my turn to present Developing for TV with AIR, where @fcolaco grounded me for not behaving don’t remember why though but I think it was okay to do so.

Day 3 & Last Day:
Yep, this pretty much sucks, everybody knew that this was the last day of the conference and everyone was sad about it as well, nevertheless, @dctrl @starnut and me decided to have a blast on the slopes and do some snowboarding the last day, which again was wonderful due to the awesome weather in the mountains, this time we had to start a bit earlier as some attendees were living that night.
First of all @trinefalbe stepped up the stage with her talk on Cognitive Psychology in Interactive Design a very very good talk which I really enjoyed and I recommend this one to all of you designing Flash Applications, Websites, or even if you are not a Flash Developer, have a look at it as soon as her video is online. After Trine we had to speed up things a little and instaed of having dinner @riccastelhano was up on the stage doing his talk on Flash + Arduino: a connection with Feelings, again a very inspiring talk with funny moments and great shows, as well it wakened up the electronical guy in me, just need to get my hands on a bunch of boards and start building my own stuff, I think our good friend Maciek “Feel happy like a pig in the mud” Wcislik aka @inoutin had the same thoughts like me.
Last but not least our very own SFUG co-manager @_sandro was up on the stage talking about Advanced Flash Accessibility a great talk as usual and how could it be different, Sandro released a new opensource library called JAcc that will help every flash developer enabling Accessibility in their Flash Projects. That was it gotoAndSki(); was officially over and everyone was feeling sad about it.

At the end it was one of the best conferences I’ve attended in the past, not only because there was some snowboarding involved, no, @fcolaco and @almeidavid_made a great conference in the swiss alps porting the concept from norway to switzerland, I had a blast meeting all these people, which now became friends, I can’t describe well enough how the conference was, I think the best would be to check out the tweets from the first week after the event by then you will be mad that you didn’t attend this event but you will know where you are going to be next year when it’s time for gotoAndSki(“switzerland”); 2012.

Below some of the tweets that I think really explain how the conference was:

I guess good networking is when you think “I miss this guys” instead of just “I made this business contacts”. Damn #gotoAndSki nostalgia…
@fcolaco

Blog: Two thumbs up for #gotoAndSki(‘Switzerland’) http://www.trinefalbe.com/?p=690
@trinefalbe

Walking through the streets of Lisbon. “Need to catch fresh air”, my brain says. I guess it’s a #gotoAndSki secon… http://picplz.com/FvSV
@imhugo

Me too! RT @RicCastelhano: may I return to the Swiss Alps ?? May I, please? Pretty please? #gotoandski aftermath
@jenschr

Somehow I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook,
I mean it’s really cool to catch some friends if you move around the world and you  have a few cool games which I really enjoyed playing in the past, but it’s a pain if you don’t know how to integrate your cool app with Facebook properly I’ve already done some applications on Facebook with the previous API and sadly I didn’t had the time to scroll through the new API and see if it got any better. I’m pretty sure Michael dug the whole Graph API from front to back, left to right. So why not trust him and read the book

I’m really looking forward to it, be sure to come back in a few weeks to read my review, oh and by the way, if you can’t wait for me to review it, why don’t you catch an e-book or hard-printed copy? Click here to order yours right away.

Just 17 more days to gotoAndSki(); the swiss edition in Stechelberg, a good time to present what I’m going to talk about during my session called “Developing AIR for TV”.

During these 45 minutes, you are going to learn how to develop AIR content for Television, starting from a simple videoplayer using the new StageVideo classes (StageCraft) to a simple Remote Controlled Slideshowviewer, up to a P2P multiplayer game which can be played with different control devices like the TV remote that comes along with your TV device or with any Android 2.2 with Adobe AIR powered Device. All these examples and a few more hints on optimization and design considerations are being showed during this session.

I hope to see a bunch of you up in the mountains of beautiful Lauterbrunnen, gotoAndSki(); tickets are limited to approx 100 attendees, and as far as I know there are not much comfort tickets left, so if you want to experience an awesome event with the beautiful swiss alps and a bunch of flash / flex guys having fun in the slopes, then jump right over to the gotoAndSki(); site and book your ticket now.

See you there!
Tiago

If you get hold of any bugs or issues, please follow the issues link and fill out a bug, I will try to fix it as soon as I can.
Feel free to post a comment, if you think this application is helpful or could be improved.

The first step towards that solution was actually creating the small app posted on my blog called the UnicodeFinder. Parts of the code have also been implemented in this new application. It’s simple but yet powerful, I present you Vinayaka(), an application that hopefully will solve all your font embedding problems in the future, it’s currently in an early stage, there is lot of room for improvement. If you have ideas or find any bugs, don’t forget to visit the Vinayaka’s GetSatisfaction page and leave your note.

First of all, the application can be downloaded as it is, I’m currently not providing any source code, why? Currently it’s a mess, I first need to clean up, refactor and document the code, until that is done, I would like to keep the code to myself, if you want to help me out extending or improving, then simply let me know by throwing me an email or by filling an issue on the Google Project page.

Currently Vinayaka only runs on Windows Systems, I’m publishing the OSX version in the course of the next days, so if you are a mac user please bare with me.

Very important:
I’ll be releasing Vinayaka to the public after my talk tomorrow at the SFUG until then no download version is available.
A specific Product page will also be setup during the next 2 days.

Download:
Please follow the Projects page for downloads and issue trackings.

Below some screenshots, so you at least know what is expecting you .

After last years success in Norway, gotoAndSki(); is taking place in Switzerland this year organised by Fernado Colaço (@fcolaco), to be more precise in Stechelberg, Bern, located in the Lauterbrunnen Valley which is world known for the best place in Europe for Base Jumping. The format of the conference will stay the same like last years, during the day doing some winter sports like snowboarding, skiing, Airboarding or just chilling at the slopes. After the slopes close the sessions and workshops will start in the cozy chalet, meanwhile we should know eachother quite well as there are only around 100 tickets to be sold.

The speaker session lineup has not been finalized yet, but you might see some names you already know and if not, it doesn’t matter really as you are going to experience a totally cool conference with the swiss alps charm.

If you haven’t booked your ticket yet, then don’t hesitate and jump right to the website and get your tickets here

By looking at the speakers line-up, there are a few well known speakers from the SFUG, but as well a few international speakers with some very very interesting topics, every session looks promising and interesting to me, but I’m personally looking forward to Dennis Ippels Kinect session and Ricardo Castelhano’s Arduino session.

I’m doing a presentation on AIR for TV, where I’m going to go through the process of creating an application for TV’s aswell some pitfalls, things you should be aware of when developing for TV and at the end we are going to have a little multiplayer game running on the big screen.

If you are up for a few days in the snow with some cool people and to see some great cool new projects and approaches, then don’t miss the chance to get yourself a ticket and enjoy this event.
Below you find a small link collection with the most important informations:

gotoAndSki(); – Official Website
gotoAndSki(); – Get your tickets now.
gotoAndSki(); – Sessions and Speakers
gotoAndSki(); – Getting There

The next SFUG (Swiss Flash User Group) takes place on the 5th of January 2011 at the Publicis Office in Zurich, To begin the new year with a bang, we are having Michael Fretz present his newest project involving Arduino and Android, sounds like fun. Myself is presenting a new tool I’ve been working on called Vinayaka, if you want to know more about it, either pop by on the 5th of January or switch on to our live streaming.

Topic 1: Vinayaka ( Tiago Dias )

Topic 2: Arduino & Android ( Michael Fretz )

When: 5. January 2011 / 19:00-22:00
Where: Publicis Werbeagentur, Stadelhoferstrasse 25, 8024 Zürich

More information about SFUG can be found on:
Adobe Groups
SFUG Site

The next SFUG (Swiss Flash User Group) takes place on the 1st of December 2010 as usual at the Publicis Zurich office.
If you want to see a cool multiscreen application running on various devices then pop by and enjoy the evening with us.

Topic 1: Showcase Giroflex  (Marcel Vogt / Tiago Dias)

Topic 2: TBA

When: 1. December 2010 / 19:00-22:00
Where: Publicis Werbeagentur, Stadelhoferstrasse 25, 8024 Zürich

More information about SFUG can be found on:
Adobe Groups
SFUG Site

In the following series, I’m going to show you how to access those special properties that are available when developing for an Android or any other Flash / AIR powered device.

Today, we start with the Accelerometer API.

In this article I’m going to show you how to control a simple ball with the help of the accelerometer API. Clearly you could create a game like the well known Labyrinth available for the iOS or Teeter available on the HTC android devices very easy as soon as you know how to master the Accelerometer API.

Before we start just a heads up that you can follow this article even if you work with Flash CS5 although working with Flash Builder “Burrito” makes your life much easier.

To start let’s create a new Flash Builder “actionscript mobile project” called: “AccelerometerBall“.  Setup the project how you like it, just be sure that you enable full screen.

Now that you are ready to go we first check if an accelerometer is available, if none is available then it’s not worth of continuing the game, but if it’s available we add the sphere to the stage which we want to control. You can add whatever you want, i’m just using a simple sphere I created in Photoshop to be my indicator.

if ( Accelerometer.isSupported )
{
    _accelerometer = new Accelerometer();
    _accelerometer.addEventListener( AccelerometerEvent.UPDATE, onAccelUpdate );
 
    _sphere = new sphereClass();
    _sphere.scaleX = _sphere.scaleY = .2;
    addChild( _sphere );
 
    addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, moveSphere );
}
else
{
    //display message to user that accelerometer is not available
}

When you test the application at this point, you will not see your sphere unless your developer machine has an accelerometer in place, which I doubt

So to properly test it, you should debug your application on your mobile phone, now if you are on Flash CS5 you can use Device Central to simulate the normal behavior of  a mobile phone, Flash Builder “Burrito” users can deploy and debug directly from the Flash Builder Interface, to do that, just simply create a new Run configuration and setup as following.

When debugging the application on your phone you should now be able to see the sphere you placed in stage.

Next on let’s move on to the usage of the Accelerometer API.

To move our sphere, we simply need to take the accelerometers x & y event, have a look at the code below:

protected function onAccelUpdate( event:AccelerometerEvent ):void
{
     _targetX = event.accelerationX * _factor;
     _targetY = event.accelerationY * _factor;
}
 
protected function moveSphere(event:Event):void
{
      _sphere.x -= _targetX;
      _sphere.y += _targetY;
}

If you now test your applcation on your device or in Device Central you should see your sphere moving around on your screen.
As you see every time an update of accelerometer is being dispatched the new position is being saved in the _targetX & _targetY variable, thanks to the EnterFrame we move our sphere around the stage.

Here the complete code for you to review:

package
{
	import flash.display.Bitmap;
	import flash.display.Sprite;
	import flash.display.StageAlign;
	import flash.display.StageScaleMode;
	import flash.events.AccelerometerEvent;
	import flash.events.Event;
	import flash.sensors.Accelerometer;
 
	public class AcceleroBall extends Sprite
	{
		[Embed(source="sphere.png")]
		private var sphereClass:Class;
 
		private var _sphere			:Bitmap;
		private var _factor			:uint			= 50;
 
		private var _accelerometer		:Accelerometer;
		private var _targetX			:Number;
		private var _targetY			:Number;
 
		public function AcceleroBall()
		{
			setup();
		}
 
		protected function setup():void
		{
			if ( Accelerometer.isSupported )
			{
				_accelerometer = new Accelerometer();
				_accelerometer.addEventListener( AccelerometerEvent.UPDATE, onAccelUpdate );
 
				_sphere = new sphereClass();
				_sphere.scaleX = _sphere.scaleY = .2;
				addChild( _sphere );
 
				addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, moveSphere );
			}
			else
			{
				//display message to user that accelerometer is not available
			}
		}
 
		protected function onAccelUpdate( event:AccelerometerEvent ):void
		{
			_targetX = event.accelerationX * _factor;
			_targetY = event.accelerationY * _factor;
		}
 
		protected function moveSphere(event:Event):void
		{
			_sphere.x -= _targetX;
			_sphere.y += _targetY;
		}
	}
}

Now it’s up on you to create the boundaries, some holes on the floor, and there you go you have your first Flash Game.

If you have questions, don’t hesitate to comment on this post.

Today, I would like to show you how to suppress certain Keyboard Events, let’s say you setup a kiosk application where the keyboard has to stay attached to the computer and available to the users, there are two ways you can prevent the application to be closed by a kiosk visitor:

A) You take hammer and hit the ESC key out of the keyboard
B) You write a simple small function that will take care of it.

I know I know option A is more fun, but we prefer going with option B.

So let’s have a look what we need to do:
1. As soon as our application starts we need to tell our application to go full screen interactive and add an eventlistener for Event.CLOSE and KeyboardEvent.KEYDOWN.
2. When the user tries to exit the application by either trying a key combination or CMD+Q (Win: ALT+F4) these events will popup and do whatever you wrote in the callback, this is how it should look like:

addEventListener( KeyboardEvent.KEYDOWN, onKeyDown );
addEventListener( Event.CLOSING, onClose );
 
private function onKeyDown( e:KeyboardEvent ):void
{
      e.preventDefault();
}
 
private function onClose( e:Event ):void
{
      e.preventDefault();
}

Yep the magic happens with the preventDefault() method, as it says it prevents the default action to happen. Additionally you could assign an if statement to the onKeyDown event where you listen for a specific combination of keys so you can really close the application.